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MEN AND EVENTS OF 
FORTY YEARS 



Autobiographical T{eminiscences of an active career 
from 18^0 to i8c}0 



BV THE LATE 

JOSIAH BUSNELL GRINNELL 



WITH INTRODUCTION BY 

PROF. HENRY W. PARKER, D. D. 



BOSTON 

D LOTHROP COMPANY 

WASHINGTON STREET OPPOSITE BROMFIELD 



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Copyright, 1891, 




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D. 


LOTHROP 


Company. 




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PREFACE. 



By Prof. Henky W. Parker, D.D. 



The author of this volume lived to complete the book, except 
the preface, which has been assigned to me, who knew and loved 
him for nearly half a century. Much of the volume was written 
in Mr. Grinnell's last days, in the midst of manifold business and 
while suffering from disease — sometimes in severe pain while 
dictating to an amanuensis. Still, it is one of those valuable 
books of reminiscence (probably the more photographic because 
rapid and free in expression), of which there are too few in the 
past, and which give a better insight into events and men than 
formal history — in this case, both state and national. How few 
men, of wide acquaintanceship and action, appreciate the future 
value of their recollections, not prized by them for the same reason 
that posterity would highly prize the story, namely, the narrator's 
familiarity with the facts. I once urged upon a septuagenarian, 
who could well say pa^^s fui of early western New York, and of 
much of New England in the first half of this century, the duty of 
talking out his reminiscences on paper ; but he persisted rather in 
compiling a useless book on the French Eevolution, which, natu- 
rally enough, had made as hearsay a profound impression on him 
in his boyhood. 

To look through the eyes of Mr. Grinnell's memory in this book 
is to behold a great panorama of events and men, in the most inter- 
esting stages of our progress — the founding of States and the 
upholding of the Union and Freedom. To look into his eyes, as 
one can almost do in reading his pages, is to look into a large, 
noble nature of marvellous activities, of remarkable individuality ; 



viii PREFACE. 

and this alone renders the book a blessing to the youthful who 
may be inspired by his energetic and lofty example. 

A full appreciation of Mr. Grinnell's chapters, in the minds of 
those who knew him, carries with it a vivid impression of his 
remarkable personal qualities. The reverse of tall, of very solid 
build, with a short, strong neck and fearless temperament, all 
his sturdy fighting endowment took the direction of indomitable 
energy in enterprise and of intrepid assertion of everytliing right 
and good ; and the always overflowing surplus of his vital energy 
took the shape of superabounding good nature. His manner was 
the freest and cheeriest to all persons, on all occasions ; his plans 
and opinions, of the largest pattern ; his disposition, utterly devoid 
of selfishness and any trace of meanness ; his feeling, so bright and 
hopeful as to exclude the thought of anything dark in the uni- 
verse, except it might be present injustice to be righted, or want 
and suffering to be relieved. Though not a theoretical, he was a 
practical communist, holding every hour and power and possession 
ready for the common good. Indeed, he must have struck every 
thoughtful acquaintance as a rare, even unexampled, phenomenon 
of exhaustless activity and generosity. Of course, with such a 
nature he was frank„never stinting expression of his thought and 
feeling, in any presence whatsoever ; and so frank that sometimes, 
as in this book, his felicitation over all persons, all things, when it 
included himself might seem like egotism, whereas he most cer- 
tainly held a modest opinion of himself and his deeds. In fact, 
he lived outside of himself in enterprises, in beneficence, and in a 
singularly Avorshipful regard toward men justly eminent, as shown 
by much of eulogistic tone in this book. 

Some of the passages, quoted from himself in the following 
pages, give some hint of his pithy style, his happy humor, and his 
truly poetic flights, as an extemporaneous speaker — such that he 
was sent for or called upon on all occasions, never failing to fulfill 
expectation. The most of the pages give little impression of all 
this, written as they were in intervals snatched from business, 
without the stimulus of occasion and audience; and the very 
nature of the work, together with advancing disease, lending the 
sober coloring of retrospect, combined with prospect of life's ter- 
mination. Genius of every kind, and especially the literary, is 
simply a keen perception of the subtile or manifold inter-relations 
of things, with daring and persistence in embodying the conse- 



PREFACE. ix 

quent conceptions ; and I do not hesitate to say that Mr. Grinnell 
was a genius, and would have made his mark as an author, if he 
had devoted time and elaboration to literary work. The only man, 
so far as my limited knowledge goes, who distinctly recognized 
this, was Rev. H. Melville Tenney, his last pastor, who in the 
funeral address, said, "He was of an essentially poetic tempera- 
ment . . . He caught the ideal in every situation . . . 
This element characterized his deeds, his writings and his public 
addresses. His thoughts, tinged with poetic glow, rushed out into 
expression, sometimes faster than logic could arrange them, and 
sometimes they seemed to mingle in inextricable confusion, but 
almost invariably emerged in some telling climax that justified all 
that had gone before. There was a real Carlylian strength in his 
style when at his best." 

One period of Mr. Grinnell's early life, otherwise overlooked, 
was touched upon by Ex-President G. F. Magoun, D. D., on the 
same funeral occasion. " In the employ of the American Tract 
Society, he was the most useful man ever engaged by that great 
truth-distributing organization. He could see more people and say 
more in a day than any man I ever knew. He was a herald of 
light and truth to the early villages of Iowa and Wisconsin." 

Besides being the founder of several towns (including Chapin, 
Iowa, named after his wife's family), and both founder and presi- 
dent of a university and of two banks, and other institutions, Mr. 
Grinnell held the following official civil appointments : Special 
Agent of the Post Office Department for the North-west — by 
President Lincoln; Arbitrator in adjustment of Wool Schedules 
under the tariff law — by the Secretary of the Treasury; Agent 
to report on Animal Industry in the United States — by the Com- 
missioner of Agriculture. The following offices he held by popular 
election: State Senator, 1856, on a platform of Free Schools, no 
saloons, and no extension of Slavery ; Representative in Congress 
in 1862, and re-elected in 1864, by 6,000 majority, but declined to 
canvass for a third term. The following were honorary appoint- 
ments: Referee in the Treaty purchase of the Cherokee Neutral 
Lands, and as such conferring with United States Senators and 
the President; Receiver of the Central Railroad of Iowa, and act- 
ing Superintendent, and more than vindicated in his management 
by the Courts and the Press; selection by the National Cattle 
Association aS' Chairman of the Committee on Pleuropneumonia to 



X PEE FACE. 

draft the Bill passed by Congress, affecting millions of property by 
its enactment. Add to these, numerous presidencies and other 
offices in State and district associations, directorships of railroads, 
etc. 

From a long editorial on his life and work, in the loiva State 
Register, of Des Moines, the ensuing extracts may be made as indi- 
cating the great public estimation in which he was held, far and 
wide : 

" Mr. Grinnell's life record would be a history of Iowa. He was one of the 
leaders of the noble pioneers who settled in the state within the first decade of 
statehood, and his unceasing efforts have done more to develop the central portion 
of the state than has been accomplished by any other citizen. 

* * * * * * 

"It is difficult to write of Mr. Grinnell in a brief article. His splendid life 
record has been a continuous labor of love for his State and Nation. He was a 
close student, a constant reader, a deep thinker and one of the most condensive 
writers and speakers of his time. His short, vigorous and expressive sentences 
always betokened his conscientiousness, fidelity to principle and unswerving integ- 
rity. Of a progressive mould he was continually striving for improved methods 
and better regulations in all the affairs of life No state boundaries could encom- 
pass his good work. He has been a prominent and zealous laborer in the business, 
church, educational, temperiyice and political affairs of the State and Nation, and 
had gained the personal acquaintance and respect of more of the leading men of 
the past forty years than any man who has lived continuously in Iowa during the 
period named. He had a personal acquaintance with "Wendell Phillips, Charles 
Sumner, Thad. Stevens, Horace Greeley, Henry "Ward Beecher, John Brown and 
nearly all the other noted statesmen, scholars, ministers and j)atriots of his time, 
and was popular with .all of them, as he has always been with all good people. 

" He was engaged for several years in compiling reminiscences of the past forty 
years. His notes, library and memory were all stored with data gathered by him- 
self, and we understand that he completed his book, or nearly completed it, before 
he was compelled to cease his labors, by the disease that finally conquered the 
sjnrit that never acknowledged defeat from any other soui-ce. This history will be 
invaluable to all coming generations of this state as he has included Iowa men and 
times in his reminiscences of the past four decades. 

" After Emancipation, the good heart of Mr. Grinnell took xip the work of edu- 
cation for the negro, as actively as he had xmrticipated in the struggle for freedom. 
To the black race he was the foremost and most consincuous friend and cham- 
pion in Iowa. When this state, first of all in the Union, enfranchised the negro in 
1868, he was the leader of it all, and made every stump eloquent with his appeals 
for justice to the oppressed race. Deep in the heart of the black men always will 
live the memory of Mr. Grinnell. 

"Mr. Grinnell's life began in Vermont in 1821, and closed in Iowa in 1891. 
Between the cradle at New Haven, Vt., and the deathbed at Grinnell are seventy 
long years of high thinking and noble living — a pilgrimage that reads like the 
scriptural accounts of the lives of the elect who walked with God and who in their 
hearts carried the consciousness of a divinely appointed mission on earth. The 
two facts that stand out most prominently in tao earthly pilgrimage of this 



PHEFACE. xi 



divinely gifted man were his devotion to truth and his love of freedom, 
because deeply conscious that he was right and had truth and justice on his side, 
he remained imtil the great struggle was over, a leader in the ranks of anti-slavery 
and pro-Union thinkers and workers. Of the end he never despaired. The dark 
days came, the clouds lowered, human hearts were burdened with almost more 
than human strength could bear, God and victory seemed to hesitate between the 
North and the South, the Right and Wrong — but here was one strong man, 
whose hope dimmed not, whose faith faltered not, and whose courage forsook him 
not. 

" Distinguished in public life, Mr. Grinnell was loved in private life. He was 
a man of the home before he was a man of the rostrum, the forum or the school. 
With him the home was the beginning of all that is noble and all that is pure. It 
was with him the source of personal strength and National security. He loved his 
own home. He loved the wife of his heart who tenderly consecrated there her life. 
He loved his children with the warmth of a great heart. This man's life, so fear- 
less in the discussion of public questions, so brave always, was as tender and as 
gracious as a woman's in his own home. Outside of the love of his family he was 
loved by thousands. He had troops of friends and never were friends more loyal 
to any man. He held them in tlie grasp of his strong love, and as he neared life's 
end they grew nearer and dearer to him. They thought of him and he thought of 
them. They inquired more and nuire earnestly after him as he grew weaker and 
weaker, and from a deeper depth of gratitude sent back to them his fervent, ' God 
bless you all '. 

"Mr. Grinnell, by residence belonged to Grinnell, by faith to the Congrega- 
tional Church and by politics to the Republican party, but in a wider, truer sense 
he belonged to no city, no sect and no party — but to the jieople, to the state and to 
the cause of the greatest good for all men. His good will, sympathy and assistance 
were denied to no good cause. He investigated all subjects of human thought. He 
labored in all fields of human endeavor. And whatever he espoused, whatever he 
touched, he enriched with the love of a warm heart and the genius of a determined 
spirit striving for success. Poor, struggling, full of hope, full of ambition in his 
youth ; active, pushing, energetic, enterprising, determined in the prime of life ; in 
old age an oracle, and in death mourned and regretted — such are the life and 
death of Iowa's noble pioneer and honored citizen, who lies awaiting the last sad 
rites, at his old home in Grinnell." 

Mr. Grinnell died of throat disease, complicated with asthma, 
March 31, 1891, at his home, fronting the park in Grinnell. The 
eloquent tributes paid to him by his neighbors and the western 
Press would make a volume; some extracts are given in an 
Appendix. He was buried with the heartfelt mourning of the 
whole community. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Birthplace — Ancestry — Family Pioneers — Childhood — The Old 
Church and Min ister — Youthful Episodes — The Boy School- 
master — The Harrison Campaign. 

CHAPTER II. 

A Student — Moot Courts — -First Visit to Neiv York — Notable 
Events and Persons of Half a. Century Ago— Oneida Institute — 
Picture of Reformers and Orators, Gerritt Smith, Alvin Stewart, 
President Beriah Green. 

CHAPTER III. 

False Theories — Club Life — Westward, ho ! — Wisconsin Prairies — • 
Codding, the Abolition Orator — The Home of the Badger — 
A Volume — A Return East — A Student in Auburn Theological 
Seminary — First Call to Preach — Union Village, New York — 
My Mothei-^s Death. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Washington Society — Its Intolerance — The neiu Congregational 
Church — A Liberal Club — Distinguished Reformers — Dr. 
Bailey^ s National Era — Radical Legislators. 

CHAPTER V. 

Garrison — Whittier — Simms, the Fugitive — U. S. Mai'shal Dev- 
ens- — Caleb Ctishlng — Henry Wilson — Anson P. Burling ame 
— Theodore Parker. 



xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VI. 

''Go West, Young Man, Go West" — Out-door Speaking in New 
York — Failure of Voice — Horace Greeley's Advice — Copy of 
Greeley'' s Letter — Proposed Colony — Turned from Missouri by 
Slavery — Protege of Henry Farnam — Railway Magnate — 
Fortunate Location of the City of Gi'innell. 

CHAPTER VII. 

Prohibition of Saloons — Pioneering Incidents — Rattlesnake Ser- 
mon — Our Mail Service — First Law Suit — The Long Home — 
Foibles of an Enthusiast — First Fourth of July — Fii'st Ceme- 
tery Bu7'ial — A Bell on the Prairie — The Church. 

CHAPTER \lll. 

State Senator — Free School Law — Congressional Canvass — How 
I became a Lawyer. 

CHAPTER IX. 

The War Congress, 1863-5 — A Scat F^nsode — Wilson, Kasson, 
Price, Allison, Hubbard, E. C. Ingersoll, Lovejoy, Henry Wiiiter 
Davis, Oakes Ames, President Hayes, President Garfield, Col- 
fax, Blaine and others — The Opposition Leaders, Hendricks, 
Voorhees, Brooks, Wood, Cox, etc. — War Days at Home. 

CHAPTER X. 

Thirty-ninth Congress, 1^0)5-1 — Financial Problems — Red Tape — 
Whiskey Tax — The Thirteenth Amendment — Reconstruction — 
Revieiv of the Times — Tlie Press Reporters. 

CHAPTER XI. 

A Personal Assault — Freedman's Bureau the Occasion with the 
Apostasy of Andreiv Johnson — James F. Wilson — Freedom of 
Speech — General Rousseau reprimanded by the House — His 
Death. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XII. 



Lincoln's War Cabinet — Salmon P. Chase — Edwin M. Stanton — 
William H. Seward — General and President Gran^ 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Thaddeus Stevens — Schuyler Colfax — John A. Logan — Gratz 
Brown — David Davis — Henry S. Foote — Jefferson Davis — 
Gen. Winfield Scott — Henry Clay — Daniel Webster. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Our Notable Guests — Wendell Phillips — John Brown — Horace^ 
Greeley — Henry Ward Beecher. 

CHAPTER XV. 

Some People I have met — John G. Saxe — George H. Corliss — 
Aljjheus Hardy — Arthiir Sherburne Hardy- — Father Clark- 
son — W. F. Story — Edgar W. Nye — Joseph Cook — John B. 
Gough — Robert G. Ingersoll. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

loiva and lowans — Col. S. H. M. Byers, our War Historian — 

Charles Aldrich — D. N. Richardsoji — Ho7i. Ezekiel Clark — 
John L. Coffin — Generals James B. Weaver, N B. Baker, John 
M. Corse, Samuel B. Curtis, G. M. Dodge, J. M. Crocker and 

Willia7)i W. Belknap — Governors Grimes, Kirkwood, Stone, 
Merrill, Carpenter, Gear, Sherman and Larrabee — Judges 

Wright, Nourse, Miller, Dillon, Love and McCrary — Hons. 

Graves, Moninger, Howell and McDill — Henry Clay Dean. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Indians — The Sacs and Foxes in Iowa — The Friend of the Indians, 
John L. Davenport — Indians and the Cattle Husbandry — The 
True Policy of the Nation toward its Wards. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

The Prohibition Temperance Issue — Skirmish Line Demonstrations 
— The Political Status — Prohibition Party — An Address — 
The loiva Churches — George C. Haddock — -Latvs of Heredity — 
Revenue from Whiskey. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



Railroads — Personal Work- — Central Railroad of Iowa — Receiver- 
ship and Sup)erintendence- — Malicious Litigation — Vindication. 

CHAPTER XX. 

Agricultural Affairs — Wool-Groiver^s Association — National Dairy- 
men^ s Fair — District Fair of 1859 — -Fme Stock Breeders' 
Society — Commissioner on Pleuro-jjneumonia among Cattle — 
State Horticultural Society — American Agriculttiral Associa- 
tion — State Fair of 1890 — Arboriculture — Fences — Protective 
Tariff. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Grinnell University and Iowa College — Their building — Progress 
— Fire — Tornado Benefactors — Tribute to their Memory — 
Other Benefactors — Use of Trust Funds. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

The Tornado of 1882 — Descriptive Incidents -— Relation to the 
Town — Visit to Princely Givers — -Personals. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

Histoi'ical Address at New Haven, Vt., 1887 — Distinguished Ver- 
monters — loiva Vermont and New England Associations — 
Eulogy 07i Senator Solomon Foote — Shorter Catechism. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

The Cherokee Neutral Land Purchase — Emigrant Aid Company — 
Vindication of Secretary James Harlan — James F. Joy — First 
Bridge across the Missouri— A Texas Overland Trip — Journey 
to Mexico. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

Grinnell Quarter Centennial Celebration — Silver Wedding — A Ser- 
mon on Sermons — The Home Library — Tribute to a Life's 
Comp>anion — Money Making — Words to Children and Grand- 
children — Memorial of Faith. 



REMINISCENCES OF MEN AND EVENTS 
OF FORTY YEARS. 

CHAPTER I. 

Birthplace — Ancestry — Family Pioneers — Childhood — The Old 
Church and Minister — Youthful JiJ^nsodes — The Boy School- 
master — The Harrison Campaign. 

I KNEW the fortune, if it might so be counted, of rural life and 
humble poverty. The sorrows of orphanage were mine, but from 
the dissipations and perils of youth in cities I had a happy 
exemption. My claim as a loyal Vermonter has ever been 
unquestioned, and I refer to my oration in New Haven, after 
nearly a half century of absence, while speaking in the old church 
in the presence of veterans, friends of my parents, and the later 
generations, as to the minister who moulded the people, and the 
rude but virtuous life of the pioneers. 

My father's name was Myron, the eldest son of Keuben Grin- 
nell, whom I introduce later. I was born in New Haven, Vermont, 
on the 22d of December, 1821, Forefather's day. My father, as 
the orator of the day, was addressing a crowd of grown-up pil- 
grims, in the church, at that hour, rather than greeting the arrival 
of myself, a young pilgrim. 

Josiah was the name given me, in honor of a noted clergyman 
of the town, Josiah Hopkins, while the second name, Bushnell, 
was said to be jointly for the Eeverend Jedediah Bushnell, of 
Cornwall, and (that the youth thus heavily laden with honor might 
be inclined to the ministerial vocation) the famous Horace Bush- 
nell, of Hartford, a leader of progressive theology, honored by a 
public park and a monument. Then, Hon. Campbell Bushnell, a 
lawyer of fame, ever claimed that I was named for him, also, by 



2 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

his next friend, my father, which is confirmed by a correspond- 
ence; and if there were wanting an apology for myself, a humble 
actor in the role of the ministerial and legal professions, I might 
find it both in the names borne and honorable associations of 
friendship and blood. 

Grinnell is a reminder of Huguenot origin, and an ancestry rich 
in traditions of history, and of men tried and true in the dark 
hours of religious persecutions — men with iron in their blood. In 
peace, their children were men of affairs. They could scale mount- 
ains, navigate seas, and must be classed with the great reformers, 
without ''principles for sale" or religious convictions to barter. 
It is the common remark of those who have studied our genealog- 
ical tree that there has never been one of the name convicted of an 
infamous offense, which opinion I have no occasion to discredit, 
however indifferent many of the name may have been to their 
blood, and a fortunate history and environment. 

Grinnelle, in the original French, became the same name with- 
out the terminal "e " or with one less "1," and abbreviated by the 
loss of an "n"; thus arose the variations of a name from one root, 
being many branches from the same trunk. There was a family 
" Coat of Arms." I only look at it, but I do not presume to wear 
it, as I think our children will not. I do not forget the more than 
traditional honor of the family. Grenelle Spring, in Paris, so 
noted, was once in their possession, and is still known for its 
medicinal value and historic surroundings. 

It is no idle boast that our ancestors were real Huguenots. 
Their faith and manhood were tested on the revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes, in 1685. The issue was sharp — the renunciation 
of their Protestant faith, or the alternative of a bloody strife and 
expatriation in poverty. They chose a peaceful course, and the 
chronicles of the time give their exit to a home on the chalky cliffs 
of Cardiff, Wales, leaving parks and gardens to their intolerant 
foes. Here, for twenty-five years, enterprise and sturdy manhood 
were blended with patriotism and religion. Then the family was 
lured into the migratory tide across the ocean, where they found a 
rude home at Little Compton, Ehode Island, in 1710. Their early 
shelter, a stone house, from which went forth kindred of various 
tastes and ambitions, is still standing. The late Moses H. Grin- 
nell, some thirty years ago on the high wave of prosperity, com- 
missioned me to make a purchase of the historic stone house for 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 3 

the family, a service which I regret was omitted, and the posses- 
sion will be left, if ever gained, to some member of the family 
of enterprise.* 

Persons bearing our name are few, but they are of diverse 
tastes, and found engaged in many vocations. There was one 
branch in the South, planters, whom I regret to say developed into 
enemies of the Union, and are known, many of them, to have 
fallen in the late war, and are noAv unknown by their loyal kin- 
dred in the North. There was the commercial branch, Joseph 
Grinnell, of New Bedford, being one of the most conspicuous 
members, just deceased, over ninety years of age. He was a 
banker, a railway president, and held a place in congress forty 
years ago, shaping our commercial jjolicy as a nation. Henry 
Grinnell, of New York, died in 1874, at the age of seventy-five 
years, a quiet merchant prince, who, with munificent liberality, 
instituted search for Sir John Franklin and party, and thus was 
discovered what is known as "Grinnell Land." His enterpise 
became more than national. Moses H. Grinnell, another brother, 
was of the renowned firm of Grinnell & Minturn, New York, 
great ship-owners. Mr. Grinnell was elegant in tastes, liberal, as 
evinced by the contribution of $20,000 in a single political cam- 
paign; long a member of Congress, Collector of the Port of New 
York under President Grant, losing the mass of his fortune in 
building the Hudson River Railroad, and spending the later years 
of his life abroad, offended in his political honor by President 
Grant, who would not accept his resignation, but later appointed 
an enemy rather than a friend to the Collectorship. I forbear to 
give the details of this painful episode, but remember well his last 
allusion when I said, "President Grant asked yesterday for your 
health," on which I gained the reply: "Will you please inform 
the President that he is the last person to whom I should answer ; 
for in my dealings with men in the last forty years he is the only 



*I do not forget that there are persons of our name who insist that there was 
an arrival of a branch of our family at Plymouth, in the early colonial days. 
Proud of a noble origin, embracing the traditional "three brothers," whose fami- 
lies became widely scattered in various pursuits, I do not hold this a simple family 
legend, and we must wait on the leisure of some one curious in genealogical 
research for names and dates. 

The late Hon. Joseph Grinnell, of New Bedford, Mass., gave my version 
of their origin, migration and settlement. Still, if antiquarian researches are 
prompted by this, and we are found to be of a family of higher repute, it will be no 
cause of regret. 



4 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

official who had the power and inclination to bring to me shame, I 
will not say dishonor." This circumstance I related to the Presi- 
dent, who said it pained him that his friend would not tolerate an 
explanation of an occurrence which he had many times regretted 
when too late to make atonement to his great-hearted, public- 
spirited friend. 

The New England Society of New York elected Mr. Grinnell 
its President for some ten years, and a fashionable club-house of 
that city deemed itself fortunate in possession of his late palatial 
residence, at the corner of Pourteenth Street and Pifth Avenue, so 
long distinguished for the elegant and liberal hospitality of its 
owner. 

Of this family I mention only the daughter of another brother, 
Cornelia Grinnell, who married the poet, N. P. Willis. She 
opened and maintained in her widowhood a ladies' school in New 
York. Admiral Hy. Walton Grinnell, the son of Henry Grinnell, 
served in the navy during the war with honor, later in the service 
of the Mikado of Japan, still later public adviser to the Republic of 
Ecuador, and now, I think, has retired after a distinguished career. 

Hon. George Grinnell, of Greenfield, Massachusetts, was long a 
member of Congress, afterward wearing the ermine of a just 
judge, an officer in the Congregational church for half a century, 
and lived to an advanced age. His descendants have upheld the 
repute of the family. Hon. James S. Grinnell, known as an agri- 
cultural writer, is an authority on rural affairs. Hon. W. P. Grin- 
nell, long in the Consular service, married a sister of our Vice- 
President Morton, of whom he was a business partner, and with 
whom he now holds a confidential and honored relation in Wash- 
ington. Leaving unmentioned a large class less distinguished, but 
alike worthy of honorable family mention, I pass now to 

OUR OWN FAMILY. 

Our grandfather was Reuben Grinnell, a farmer, who removed 
from Salisbury, Connecticut, to Lanesborough, Massachusetts. In 
the year 1791 he migrated to what is known as Lanesborough 
Street, in the town of New Haven, Vermont. His children were 
seven, none of whom survive, nor are their descendants numerous. 
Among the sons was Heman ; his only son was the late Josiah 
Hopkins Grinnell, M. D., of Messina, New York. His son, Pro- 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 5 

fessor Ashbell Parinalee Grinnell, M. D., is at the head of the 
Medical University at Burlington, Vermont. He is a surgeon of 
merited distinction, for whom not his kindred alone predict greater 
professional eminence. Another son, Judge Julius Sprague Grin- 
nell, of Chicago, is a graduate of Middlebury College, Vermont, 
who has early attained national fame, by the arraignment, prosecu- 
tion and conviction of the Chicago anarchists in 1887. The world 
knows of their imprisonment and execution, deemed a severe blow 
to Socialistic theories, and the violence of agitators under our flag. 
Julius is nov/ an able and popular judge of the Superior Court, and 
justly a favorite in the professional ranks which he adorns. 

Myron Grinnell, my father, was a brother of Heman, and the 
eldest son of Eeuben, with whom, after a mention of my maternal 
ancestors, the family narrative will continue. 

Grandfather Nathaniel Hastings was born in Scotland ; proud, 
according to the family traditions, of the eminence of his name in 
the annals of that country of renowned heroes. He was the son of 
a farmer. While yet a youth he came to this country and bore a 
part in the war with Great Britain, serving on the side of his 
adopted country, and was wounded at the battle of Plattsburg, 
with honor dying from his wounds. There was left a dependent 
family, among whom was Catherine Hastings, who gained a good 
education by her own exertions and became the wife of Myron 
Grinnell, to whom there were born four sons; the second being 
Josiah Bushnell, the writer of these sketches. 

As to our family tree : It was neither gorgeous nor traced to a 
deep root. If it were, I would not minister to family vanity by a 
genealogical record, on which, in want of personal force, so many 
ordinary mortals lean heavily. My parents were from the com- 
mon people, grand as was the French ancestry. Father was an 
elegant writer, and a school-master, whose pupil was the only New 
Englander knighted by the Queen- — ^the late Sir Curtis M. Lamp- 
son, Bart., of London. He, through regard for my father, asked 
me to become a guest at his home in London. Mother was early 
an orphan, born in Barre, Massachusetts, her father having been 
mortally wounded in the war of 1812. She was intelligent, wise 
and kind. I once thought her too rigid in discipline of the boys, 
but not now, after the lapse of thirty-nine years since she passed 
to her sure and great reward. 

Grandfather Eeuben Grinnell, and grandmother Mabel, were 



6 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY J EARS. 

characters whom their descendents remember with pride. Too 
early they fell by the fatal epidemic in New Haven, in 1814, I 
learned more of them by the lips of our early minister, Josiah 
Hopkins, D. T>., for whom I was named, than from all other 
sources — that not being our day of newspapers and biographies. 

A WEDDING TRIP. 

What changes ! We ride in the Pulman cars. It is true tradi- 
tion that Grandfather Keuben, with an ax, "blazed his way" from 
Salisbury, Connecticut, up through the forests of Vermont, made a 
clearing, put up a log house, and returned after marriage to the 
new home with his bride, on a sled drawn one hundred and fifty 
miles by oxen. Their arrival was at night, only to learn that the 
cow, left at the spring by the stack of marsh hay, had been killed 
by the Indians or white marauders, and the cabin burned so far as 
the green logs would allow. The bride admitted in later days to 
the children, that she dropped tears over their calamities and 
perils by the Indians. 

"We can go back," said the husband, "or to the nearest settle- 
ment." "No, no," was the sharp answer, "I came here to stay, 
and am not going back to be laughed at — until we hear the 
Indian whoop. We can put on a new cabin roof, and there is the 
spring left, and no fear of starvation, with plenty of fish and game 
for the winter. 

There is your heroine ! The spirit of the Vermont mothers, 
worthy to rear and impel the boys, even the grand boys, to deeds 
that have since been heralded over the world. 

This is Dr. Hopkins' description of grandfather, his next man 
for twenty-one years: "Energetic, brave, but a stammerer — no 
stumbler in locomotion — very thick in speech, except when he 
prayed; then he was clear, fluent and fervent." By his history 
I judge they were not mere words. Families came in good num- 
bers to New Haven with the tidal wave of immigration, and the 
next thing was a church. He said, passing through the woods, 
"That pine tree is the finest in the forest, and must be saved, 
with its like, for the meeting-house." Fifty years afte-r it was 
felled and placed in the church I sat upon the tree-stump, proud of 
my ancestral relation. 

How came the church? On this wise: Grandfather said, "Let 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. J 

tlie land rest one year — Moses was the best farmer as well as law- 
maker, and he ruled that at periods of seven years the land should 
rest. Ours is overplowed, and I move that there be no sowing of 
grain this year. I have spared my best trees, handsome as the 
cedars of Lebanon, and our land is worth no more than acres in old 
Sodom, if, with our rising families, we cannot have a church and a 
minister." A grand pioneer! 

The meeting-house went up, and it stood the only one in 
town, spacious, comely and firm, until, after ninety years, it was 
destroyed by fire. The grandchildren have replaced it with an 
edifice of elegant adaptation. 

The adoption of Moses' plan, allowing the land to rest, 
enforced an ancient theory in farming, the next year bringing the 
equal of two ordinary crops. A minister was the next demand. 
From the records in the old town I learn that the first minister 
received as salary, "Five dollars a Sabbath, one-fourth cash in the 
spring, and three-fourths cattle in the fall." It was a Yale Col- 
lege graduate, Eev. Silas Bingham, who was the first recipient of 
this munificence. Then came Mr. Hopkins, who had been reared 
a farmer, and was anxious to lessen the salary burden by labor, if 
land could be had on which to work. Grandfather took up the 
plan of utilizing the generosity of the able-bodied young minister, 
who had heard it hinted that a very fine chopper was spoiled to 
make a common divine. The response being, "Well, let me keep 
my hand in, if I should return to at least an honest occupation." 
There was a parish meeting. A home for the minister was the 
living question, and grandfather hinted to the large landholders on 
the Street that this was the time to test how much they valued 
the worth of a minister in the community. No one responded. 
"Well," said he, "I'll give the land"; then, to the question, 
" How mvich land do you propose ? " the answer was, " For the 

Lord's cause, and not to shame my rich neighbors, steps on 

front, down through the sugar orchard, cedars and all. Who'll 
measure it ? The honest man who'll live on it." 

This was related by Dr. Hopkins, forty years afterward: 
"The parish seemed to be out the next morning to witness the 
land measuring; I declined the delicate service, a wag saying it 
wasn't fair to take the steps of the tallest man in town in cutting 
off a man's farm ; but I stepped it, and while I heard no regrets at 
the gift, it was rumored that your grandfather did say, 'I thought 



8 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

he had the longest legs I ever saw.' The stakes were set, and the 
land was over twenty acres, the most liberal act, and the best 
stroke of policy for the church, during my stay of twenty-one 
years in New Haven."* 

Dr. H.'s resignation is fresh in memory. I came from school 
hungry, and father and mother came home from the church meet- 
ing. Mother, with closed doors, 1 could hear sobbing in the bed- 
room. After coming out we plead to know what was the matter. 
She could not speak. At supper nothing was eaten save by the 
boys ; father saying with a trembling lip, " Children, do you know 
Mr. Hopkins is going away ? " It dispersed the family, and there 
was too much grief to partake even of breakfast. 

There was little of excitement for the boys in these early 
times — no water near for swimming or to make ice for skating. 
I was not, by a mythical spaniel, brought out near drowning, 



*On Saturday, p. m., the wife of Deacon Tripp called on the family, to find a 
cold room in mid-winter, thereupon Mrs. Hopkins informed the Doctor in his 
study over the wood-shed, that there was no wood in the house. The reply was, 
"Neither is there outside, and Sunday is upon us." That was an announce- 
ment — a bee in the bonnet of the deacon's wife that buzzed over Sunday, bringing 
out a captain for a frolic, enjoining a sm-prise with a load of wood from every 
parishioner, fowls plucked and in feathers, pork and beef, in halves and quarters, 
urging a contribution from every heated oven, and the presence of matrons and 
young maidens. The surprise was only more perfect than the caniival was gay, in 
a house overflowing with gifts and guests, the tea-cup stimulating within, and the 
flask, bottle and the jug without, up to the going down of the sun, when the house 
became too narrow for the provisions and the wood-yard and garden too small for 
the loads of maple and beech, from the trees felled from the parish lot and those 
gained by trespass over the fence from the Grinnell woods. Within the house 
there was reported seven cheese tubs of cake and pastry and thirteen quarters of 
beef ; and the greater curiasity, a wood pile not fully worked up and burned for 
ten years. It was the scene of hilarious conviviality, and on the departure of the 
guests, the minister was called on for a speech, which he gave from the top of a 
wood-pile, as recalled after twenty-five years : 

" Friends, 1 am cornered, not ' corned,' but crippled in my labors, ruined as to 
my garden, covered with logs from the sugar orchard. If you wish me to save 
you from a suit for trespass on the Grinnell woods, over the fence, I will make 
your plea— 'the deep snow covered fences.' Do you think I can live long enough 
to burn up this wood-pile ? It will be only by a providential interposition and life 
far into dotage. I was a chopper in my day, but it calls out the perspiration to 
think of these huge logs. Can I ask a favor, that you relieve the house by taking 
back, or to your neighbors, loads of provisions more than my horse can draw ?" 
The crowd shouted, "No, No ! " "Then if I am to distribute, you may under- 
stand that preaching in the parish is suspended until spring." 

Great red-letter day for the parish, but loud calls from other churches, with 
friction growing out of the Masonic excitement, led to a dismissal for Auburn, N. 
Y., with warm counsel, praise and sorrow in the town. 



BEMINISCENCES OF FOBTY YEARS. 9 

for real safety was in my ignorance of either skating, swimming 
or rowing, which may account for my aversion, in all my later life, 
to water in large quantities. 

I indulge only in an optimistic view, and say not that "the for- 
mer days were better than these, for thou dost not speak wisely." 
Dare I give j'ou a farmer boy's recollection it would be of bare 
feet and nursing stone bruises; binding Canada thistles with stray 
stalks of wheat ; guiding in locomotion a string of steers at a plow, 
with a rebouud at stumps and stones, which struck one's anatomy 
with the handles, but in a severer shock at the doctrine of the 
"perseverance of the saints." Families rode to church in spring- 
less lumber wagons, over hubs and stones, aifording painful exer- 
cise rather than amusement to the young, and to the mothers in 
weariness a doubtful means of grace. Money to most was not a 
snare, nor its possession a delusion. I recall a half day kept from 
school to ride a horse in corn ploughing on a scant sheep-skin and 
a sharp backbone, often impaled on the harness hames by a sudden 
collision with stumps and rocks — and, as my mother was a widow 
I Avas generously paid with a bright, full-orbed silver five cents. 
As a carrier of letters from the post office, I have witliheld for 
twenty-five cents postage a letter from "The Ohio" to the fond 
"girl I left behind me." On the one newspaper subscriber there 
were many calls, and if they who " go a borrowing, go a sorrow- 
ing," there was much grief in the neighborhood. The great church 
early gave the wood ashes to the sexton for his service, and on 
his retiring, fires were made by charity and the bell rung later by 
chance. Those high gallery pews screened card players behind the 
choir, and boys in the corner at play at fox and geese; on the 
stealthy approach of the tithing-man, one boy could swallow the 
black fox and the other pocket the geese. I recall now the jutting 
tufts of hair in the high, remote African pew, giving nearer access 
to their God in worship than to brother mortals. Hymns were 
usually in dolorous long meter and sermons in longer measure; 
which, with hard seats and chilled extremities, the genius of men- 
tal and physical punishment seemed to have inaugurated a prepa- 
ra,tion for the abode of the incorrigible. 

Sheep-washing was a frolic, and like the return from the barn 
or house-raising, there Avas much reeling, and the usual admixture 
of profanity, not confined to the grown men. A story is told of 
father, which places him in the family line as a pioneer in thought. 



10 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

After a temperance address by father, a moderate toper protested 
against signing the pledge, saying that he "washed sheep and 
must have it," to which father replied, "I can prove it is a delu- 
sion, wait and we will see," and, at the next washing, father was 
set upon and wet all over by dashing the sheep on a chilly day, 
yet not taking cold, and fully sustaining his total abstinence the- 
ory. A brother wag of the toper would take the pledge Avith a 
reservation, "at weddings and sheep-washings." This was said to 
be the ludicrous device : tethering a sheep near the house, and dip- 
ping it in a trough of water as often as a drink was taken, which 
cut short the life of the animal without prolonging by abstinence 
that of its owner. I do not vouch for the verity of this last story, 
but it was neither a humane nor a philosophic expedient of the 
veteran toper. 

The cider mill, which was an established institution of the 
time, I recall, for we were partners in a concern which I now see 
to have been an insidious foe of good order, and leading to the first 
steps in a career of drunkenness, poverty and crime. 

To travelers all Avas free at the cider mill; the sweet, little 
tasted ; the hard, well patronized. And there was real stimulation 
in taking out the bungs from the old barrels and inhaling the 
fumes; next in effect to a draught of cider-brandy. I was an 
imitative boy, and bantered the young company to see who could 
longest inhale at the bung. Soon I began to be pale and reel, and, 
to test my condition, not simulated, there was a race, and in the 
contest my plunge was into the head of a barrel, from which I was 
borne and placed in bed, and a doctor was called, to pronounce, 
"alcohol on the brain," and my recovery doubtful. Mother said 
it was brutal to encourage a race for sport, and she would like to 
see the old mill go up in flames. This was my first and last boy 
exhibition in a state of intoxication, and has found me not more 
inclined to smile at the reeling and drivel of a drunkard than to 
take pleasure in the urging of peaceable dogs to a brutal contest, 
by their owners and supposed superiors. 

To mother I have alluded in her indignation. She was strict, 
but not severe in discipline. A home Sabbath-school was known 
in my early boyhood, and " it was verse a day, and all the same 
verse," and these must be committed, and repeated correctly before 
the Sunday supper — no verses, no supper; and there was for 
years no modification of this maternal edict. It seemed a severe 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. H 

exaction then, but a hundred times since I have used the verses 
learned, as more than the small change in society ; an accomplish- 
ment to quote and repeat in story or argument what I learned 
under an early regime, as serviceable as passages in Homer or 
Shakespeare. If one asks as to the rigid exactions of those days, I 
cannot advise. There were not as now many books, and a religious 
newspaper was a luxury. A family could draw at Sabbath-school 
a small book, aud borrowing papers from the neighbors was in line 
of service with that of bringing up mugs of cider on a friendly 
call ; both monotonous, even humiliating. 

Our mother took a high view as to religious duties. No matter 
what the pressure, it was the rule, not an incident, that we were 
called into the quiet corner room for morning prayer — the door 
bolted. It was my firm conviction that she expected Divine direc- 
tion after father's death, and that she would be wisely guided in 
mapping out a course for, and in the training of, her four rather 
rollicking boys. 

My first and last profane oath was uttered when ten years of 
age. JSTot that I have not "felt swear" a thousand times, and 
used the common "by," etc., of youth; but even in anger or war 
time never got down to the plane of a vulgar oath. If this seems 
a boast, I rather call it a proof that a common and profane prac- 
tice is without excuse. I was driving the cows to pasture, and 
clandestinely indulging in a barefoot race, when I struck my toe 
against a stone, to make a bruise, and bring out an oath. Horrors ! 
Mother, I thought, would know it, and the heavens seemed full of 
accusers, and I so fainted in my fright as to be compelled to sit 
down on a rock, and made a resolve, which by the grace of God I 
have kept — never to use a profane word, no matter what the 
temptation. My veneration is not large, and to good counsel and 
example, rather than to any special goodness, I must attribute at 
least negative virtue. 

A RIDE WITH SPURS. 

The horse was to me an early and a great attraction, and I 
should be pardoned for an almost idolatrous equine devotion in 
later years. A boy must have his experiences. There was no colt 
• in the neighborhood on Avhose back I did not covet a seat ; impa- 
tient with our "old Kate," reputed very lazy. The troopers I had 



12 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

seen with their spurs and phimes, and the only striking picture I 
can recall in my bed-room was one of Bonaparte on his steed, 
crossing the Alps. A pair of spurs I borrowed, and when some 
distance from the barn, in a field, put them on to test the speed of 
old Kate. A saddle was a necessity to good riding with spurs, a 
serious fact I soon learned. Mounting, there was at once too 
much speed for the safety of the rider, and the tighter I clung the 
sharper was the piercing, and the more frantic was the mare. 
The barn was the objective point of the beast, regardless of the 
rider, and there was a leap of the bars, and a bound by the cow, 
over the milk maid on duty, screaming in fright, and I passed 
through the stable door with less than the safety of John Gilpin 
in the race, and was thrown over the head of the brute into the 
manger, from which I was borne, spurs and all, to account for a 
venture which came near costing me my life. It cured me of my 
aspiration to become a trooper, if not deterring me from a Colo- 
nelcy of cavalry offered- to me by the Secretary of War, avIio, of 
course, was in profound ignorance of my aj)titude, and this early 
episode. 

MILITARY INFANTRY SERVICE. 

For this I had little taste. In a country of game, in Vermont 
and the West, I never took an hour for hunting; and the first, 
last, and all of my slain by lead were a prowling dog, a vexatious 
squirrel, and a i^rairy chicken on the wing. Among Indians, cow- 
boys and desperadoes in Texas, and elsewhere, I never bore a 
pistol — and I now regard it as good policy. I carried no weapon 
of defense above a penknife. I did, however, carry a gun at train- 
ing, and made my bow like most of the boys on being chosen a cor- 
poral. I coaxed my way, in place of the hired man, to the muster. 
The company and recreation I fancied, without any special delight 
in gunpowder. After weary and ludicrous evolutions, there was a 
finale of a sham-battle, loading and firing by platoons. The ''con- 
fused noise " and orders put me off my guard, and I went through 
the motions with a flint lock, only certain that the powder was 
burnt in the pan. There was disbanding with a cheer, after that 
day's training in the ways of valor, to meet any armed foe in the 
"deadly imminent breach." 

The old French musket was returned, and then I met derision 
which cooled my military ardor. It was not revived by the dress 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 13 

parade of one hundred thousand men which I saw under McClel- 
Ian, ever drilling and getting ready to " move on to Hichmond." 
"That old gun seems to be loaded yet," said the owner. It was; 
wad after wad was withdrawn, and with each a pile of powder left 
upon the floor up to seven or eleven, I do not recall which, but cer- 
tain of the kind of load, which was, whether 

"Aimed at duck or plover, 
Sure to knock the owner over." 

It was only good luck that the gun did not go off and burst 
with my best intentions, for I should not have been alive to tell 
the story, nor my companions in arms, who, rejoicing in a fortunate 
escape, rallied "the corjDoral" on his claims to promotion and pros- 
pect of military renown. I accepted the fiasco, ominous of my 
failure as a nimrod and a soldier, and have never thought con- 
cealed weapons necessary to a brave spirit; nor even the best 
defense against personal violence. I have cherished a collateral 
heresy, doubting the maxim as a good one for an iipright nation, 
"In time of peace, prepare for war." We do not act on this in our 
relation to other nations, and those foreign people who do, are 
bearing colossal burdens against Avhich the people are protesting 
with voice soon to be louder than the artillery of the Captains of 
war, who with their conceits and ambitions make only pawns of 
men in the great games of slaughter. 

AN EXPERIENCE OF SIXTY TEARS AGO. 

My first visit to a show is fresh in memory. It was not a car- 
avan ; but in a ball-room, a long narrow hotel hall. I was nine or 
ten years of age, and the novelty of the exhibition was a ballad 
singer, a phrenologist and a miniature railroad- — less than sixty 
years ago there being no riding on railroads. 

The lady singer, I dare say, was from Boston, that city from 
which came our taste for fresh, frozen cod-fish, music teachers and 
fancy-dressed people called fops. This singer indulged in all the 
airs and show of opera girls, as I afterward learned. How she did 
trill and scream ! What an open countenance on the high notes ! 
'f Isn't she good-looking ? " said the rustic boys. "ISTo," answered 
the jealous sisters, "she paints, I know it!" There was what Avas 
then called "low-dressing," and what is now termed "decollete." 



14 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEAES. 

Thereupon a heated discussion, by the mothers, as to the delicacy 
of the exhibition, avowing it as their ''last visit to such a show." 

The bland bump-man could not readily find subjects to exam- 
ine, after his laughable hits of character, and the boys came up. 
Mother told it years after. " Lead up that tow-head ! " I was the 
subject, and judge there was not much flattery ; but in blue days, 
later, found only this stimulant, "Keep up courage; don't you 
know the phrenologist said you would turn over in yovir coffin, 
after other people said you were dead, and here you are in dumps." 
This little incident made me what you call an "optimist," but 
before I heard that name, the guess of the lecturer was many times 
a stimulant, and moved me with courage in the face of ridicule and 
in the company of expediency-cowards in many a varied role. 

That railway, and the ride thereon, I recall vividly. There was 
a portable, elevated wooden track and a miniature locomotive, with 
steam up ; the car only large enough for a child. A ball-room trip 
was made in a few seconds. It did not require much coaxing to 
take a ride ; yet I was then ignorant as to how they put on the 
brakes, to keep the engine from rushing through the windows; but 
I did not care to give up the seat after being praised for courage 
and the prediction, " That boy will be a railroad man some day." 
The truth is a marvel that I can state, that in the last fifty years 
I have ridden a distance equal to many times around the globe, 
without personal injury or more than a trivial accident to pas- 
senger trains in my charge as a manager, imperiled by freshets, 
storms and vile wreckers. What a change ! Cars were then only 
freighting stone for Bunker Hill monument — three miles against 
one hundred and seventy or eighty thousand miles of railroad now, 
built at a cost equal to the entire wealth of the country then, aid- 
ing in facile locomotive a hundred fold, and employing the brains 
or hands of four or five millions of our people. 

A conscience the small boy had, and as good as new — with a 
good reason, for he had not used it. 

An early, slight peculation is not forgotten. "Will a con- 
science beggar him who keeps it?" and did the small boy who 
strove to live well, seek to " live without it ? " I was on an 
errand to the postoffice, at the house where the family were in the 
basement at breakfast. On my way down the stairs, I saw on a 
shelf a new object to me- — a mammoth peach stone, which I cov- 
eted, and put in my pocket. Leaving the house, I did not show it 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 15 

to the boys, feeling guilty. At the Sabbath-school, Miss Squire, 
an accomplished lady, was my teacher. She afterward became a 
bride, Mrs. Henry, and mother of Mrs. Gen. Alger, the wife of the 
distinguished man — head of the Grand Army of the Eepublic — 
Gen. Logan's successor in fame. That lady talked to the boys 
about petty thefts. The peach stone so disturbed me that I hid it. 
Of little value as it was, my teacher had made me uneasy by her 
appeal, and there were no pleasant thoughts until I stealthily, on 
another postoffice errand visit, left the peach stone in the place 
where I found it. It was a forced act, without any peculiar, per- 
sonal merit: but this is my tribute, after near sixty years, to a 
lady who knew how to counsel a wayward boy, not yet quite bereft 
of conscience. 

My father died in the spring of 1831, of brain fever. I remem- 
ber him tossing on the bed amidst the wildest shrieks, after calm 
resting, when he had called us together, despairing for himself, yet 
giving dying counsel recalled not in the words, but the spirit. 
While not a member of the church, he used to take a part in meet- 
ings, and ofiicially examine school teachers for the town, as I recall 
by the affrighted candidates, especially the girls, who came before 
him. Justice courts were held in the house, and patronizing law- 
yers, from out of town, took us on their knees, I am slow to 
believe, for the purpose of gaining the "favor of Court." 

Mother said later, it was bad enough to make a court-room of 
the house, but to have them wrangle over Masonry until morning 
often, was a bitter experience. Father, I think, stood by the 
Order, saying the stories were false, and that, if he could live to 
see the boys grow up good church members, they would be found 
in safe and reputable society. 

STERN DATS. 

A guardian was the next demand for the orphans — under the 
law a mother — but later as adviser, Mr. Jonathan Hoyt. If in 
New York, he would have been styled a burgher ; in Vermont a 
squire He was acting postmaster, and the owner of a spacious 
village home, and well-stocked farms. I should add he had been 
sheriff of the county, was a severe critic of men, an entertaining 
story-teller, finding eager listeners among noted guests, and in the 
village stores. 



16 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

My passing under his guardianship grew out of a village fruit 
depredation. It was hinted that "Widow Grinnell's boys" were 
not clear of suspicion. I had no part in taking the fruit, and only 
witnessed the fright of the escaping boys tangled in potato vines, 
even to falling, and who came near being impaled on fences by 
rent clothes, which forbade personal denials by the guilty party. 

Squire Hoyt, visiting mother, guessed that a separation would 
keep the boys from "behind the bars," and proposed that I should 
make my home with him. I assented, and found great diversion, 
and enough to do, and still think it to my credit that I was not 
out of the house a night for five years. That I was allowed to 
attend school only in the winter, made me backward and restive 
when I saw other boys fitted out with their blue suits, books and 
pocket money, for the distant academy. But I was a favorite with 
Mrs. Hoyt, Avho was gentle, good, mother-like and a Christian. 
She checked my aspirations, while the care of animals, and their 
sale, nursed the boy's vanity. I drove the fastest horses in town, 
engaged the haying hands, and was an adept in sheep-shearing — 
tiresome, merry occasions. Cattle were brought in aiitumn from 
long distances, and with a vein of independence I drove alone a 
small herd, more than twenty miles, reaching home only by the 
aid of the larger animals, to whose tails, in my weariness, I clung 
with a laughable despair. A species of flattery kept me from book 
learning, while enlarging my study of men. Great was my elation 
when asked by my guardian if I could bring the town money 
through the almost impassable mud, from the city of Vergennes, 
six miles distant. It was a part of the French indemnity in 1834, 
and I overheard a sharp-eyed cashier say, "it wasn't safe to send 
so large a sum of money, in bank bills up to the thousands, with 
so small a boy." 

On a second trip, one of my mates asked for a ride with me in 
a sleigh warm with furs, and after a fleet horse. Here I mention 
with gratitude a fortunate resistance to a wild, but satanic sugges- 
tion. " Wouldn't it be fine to have so much money ; let us take it 
and be off to Canada." (Long before the Hegira of our defaulters). 
"It is now eight o'clock. Sleighing is fine, and the mare will put 
us across the Canada line before morning. It is the town's money 
— it can stand it, and we'll never be caught." I escaped this 
great temptation offered to me by a boy older than myself, who 
left his own home very early as a runaway and never returned. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 17 

The repulse -which I gave him is not remembered ; but I know that 
our mothers were mentioned, and the disgrace, which he sought to 
ward off as a joke, was known afterward as a plot. 

A permission to make sales of stock and handle money, made 
me vain. The sheep sale became the ''store talk." Ex-Gov. 
Chittenden, a gentleman of dignity, drove up, and said that he 
passed a flock of sheep which he learned was for sale, and asked if 
the owner was about. I answered: "He has gone to Michigan; 
but the sheep are for sale, and I will show them." They suited 
the Governor, and thereupon a bargain was struck. " I will take 
them when Hoyt returns." I answered, "The feed is short, and 
the offer of a bargain is only for to-day." "Are you not rather a 
small boy to trade with .? " " Yes, but you can go and ask the mer- 
chant about me in the store." Mr. Eoscoe came out, and said, 
" Trade with the boy, if you can " ; and then eight hundred dollars 
passed into my hand (no iron safes in the country then), an inci- 
dent talked about, and to feed my youthful vanity still more, while 
I was beguiled along in ignorance of books. 

At sixteen years of age, in vain I plead for a portion of my 
rightful income from land. The answer was, "Not a dollar for 
academy, without an order from the Court." I felt that the rebuff 
was cruel, and the hint that I should be served on my majority, 
gave me little satisfaction. 

A BOY SCHOOL TEACHER. 

My new plane of life began by a random, thoughtless reply to 
a question, at Sunday noon, while waiting on Mr. Eldridge in the 
postoffice room. He said their new school-house room was nearly 

done, and asked if I knew if Mr. had engaged for the winter. 

On my reply, I thought he had, he said, "I do not know who to 
get then." "Nor do I," was my sportive reply, "unless you take 
me." "Would you teach?" "Yes, if anybody dare try me." "I 
will. Your father was a good master, and I went to his school. 
Call it a bargain, if it is Sunday, and we'll fix up the details." To 
all I assented on condition of strict privacy, as he could readily 
guess what talk there would be as to age and my guardian's ridi- 
cule, for I was under seventeen years of age. 

The crowded schools at that time were shams — masters setting 
me back each winter after the puzzling progress in a sum of a frog 



18 EEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEABS. 

coming up out of the well, going up and falling back so many- 
stones in the effort. Then the old school-house was but a rookery, 
and my location was often on the rogue's bench, and over the 
water pail. As often as a book fell into the pail, there was one 
spoiled; and in earlier days came a painful flogging infliction, if 
found a graduate at the head of the bench on the close of school. 
The masters were brilliant, but only student hirelings of college 
for the term, and the cold house, crowded with near a hundred, 
was fit subject for caricature. 

Great praise is due the ladies of a half century ago, as the good 
angels of destruction. The heroines of this destruction, Avith a 
smile, heard my account of the demolition of the old school-house, 
in my Vermont oration. 

"The demolition of the old school-house fiornished a vivid illustration, for 'I 
was thar' or thereabouts. That old unpainted rookery had been condemned by 
public oiiinion for years ; low, crowded by a round hundred jiupils, the mice peep- 
ing through cracks by day which larger shy vermin made at night ; windows rat- 
tled, clapboards flapped in the wind ; and a generation of sufferers, like imprisoned 
convicts, were doomed by divisions, sordid tax payers and tabled resolves of the 
lords, to near freeze on one side of their anatomy and roast on the other, until the 
mothers and daughters met, on the fortunate absence of the men at a Bristol wolf 
hunt ; moved, closing debate, the previous question, which was a signal for the 
hasty demolition of the old shell in certain promise of a new house. The veteran 
matrons, captains of squads wielding axes, lifting ladders, pulling at ropes, all are 
gone, but, as a long-perched victim on a rough bench, I do not withhold my trib- 
ute of gratitude for their clever device and courageous execution. 

A stern conflict was before me, involving preparation and the 
pride of success or the shame of failure in this private school 
engagement. Autumn farm work was driving, and not over until 
dark. To keep myself from boys' company and the family, that 
noted wool spinner by the fire-place. Bertha Chapin, still living, 
made an agreement to lock the door for my concealment, if I would 
bring in pine knots for light and fire. There, in the buzz of wheel 
and crackling fire, for many evenings extended on. the floor, when 
weary, I found, by hard study, equipment in grammar and arith- 
metic for the school. Here, I do not forget the Rev. James Mea- 
cham, LL. D. , the minister, afterward a member of Congress, who 
helped me with the hard sums. Most kindly would he take me 
to the school-house in storm, quietly inspiring with those kind 
words which I ever valued, as the promptings of the statesman 
and generous friend. In the school, I was a student from neces- 
sity, to keep ahead of ambitious pupils, and the predicted failure of 



EEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 19 

the boy was not realized. I even became bold enough to speak in 
our town lyceum, and had an exhibition at the close of the school. 

It is a pleasing reminiscence that at the meeting of the people 
of the town of New Haven, two years ago, there was the venerable 
father who hired me, and his son, laden with honors, of whom I 
said: "He is here, the district school pupil, ever equal to the occa- 
sion, financier, law maker, an alumnus and treasurer of Middlebury 
College, the Hon. L. D. Eldridge. He is pleasingly associated 
with the boy of ten years who was to be one of the young orators 
' on the last school day.' The remaining actors were absent from 
fright or allured by sports, and I found Master Eldridge, 'the boy 
father of the man,' solus, and with eloquent aptness declaiming: 
' The boy stood on the burning deck whence all but him had fled ' ; 
and, knowing the boy, I confidently predict he will never hie to 
Canada, nor vacate his trust so loug as he can mine in your pleth- 
oric pockets, nor fail to linger at the homes where there is a ray 
of hope in bequest or codicil for the grand historic college of his 
love." 

It is a part of the story that I "boarded 'round," and was paid 
$10 a month (it being my first school), and, as a poor financier, I 
paid it out for the first broadcloth suit in the hard year of 1838, 
with the ambitious device to win a suit, by delicate attentions 
(easily surmised) , which, by good fortune, at my age, were not a 
successful venture. 

Upon returning to my guardian, there were sharj) words 
between us, which severed our relations, and under my guardian's 
protest and threat, I left for Castleton Seminary, then a famed 
school of Vermont. I took up Latin and algebra, but retired from 
the rough preceptor to my old home in the autumn, with medical 
books and an engagement to teach school for the winter in Wal- 
tham, a lonely spot near by. There I felt as imprisoned, even 
envying the cawing crows in the field, and the nimble squirrels in 
the trees their antics, cracking walnuts in sight of myself, a caged, 
yet voluntary prisoner. Medical books I read during my leisure, 
with a high interest, which I thus gave in a letter not long ago : 

HOW NEAR I CAME TO BECOMING AN M. D. 

Dear Children : 

Did I ever tell you my narrow escape from being a compound "saw-bone pill 
doctor ?" Somewhat of personal gratitude mingled with thankful emotion, when 
I consider the escape of possible victims, prompts a story. 



20 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

In the autumn of 1839, after a return from Castleton Academy, our haying 
season over, I heard the loose talk of the street boys, " that they might have to 
steal a horse to get their names in the papers." Thinking to secure fame in 
another role, I decided to become a physician. It was an easier way than going 
through college, and the road was not so long by years and the boy's fever of seven- 
teen was on ! " Can't wait ! " Like many children, I said not a word to mother, 
for she had a horror of doctors, and secretly had pitched a higher key for her boy 
who had not impaled flies with pins as an amusement, nor was even an actor in 
the blood-flowing incident to the slaughter of fowls for the table. I struck out and 
took advice of the lamented, good Dr. Smith. He knew I could shear sheep, was 
a master of a horse, and seemed flattered that I preferred being a student, to recite 
every other day, and accompany him uj)on calls and surgical visits. His library 
was fair and skeletons in duplicate were at my command. Under the cover of 
night I took a book home and was ready for a recitation by night study, before 
advising with the family. Then the doctor made the proffer of a skeleton, the 
"human frame divine," which was to dangle in my room as an object lesson. By 
an oversight it was not hidden, but laid on my bed to alTriglit (not pui-posely) 
mother, as she came into my room. She said, " I cannot choose for you and have 
nothing to say, sorry as I am that the glitter of the tower of the Middlebury Col- 
lege reflected on your chamber window, does not inspire you to strike higher." I 
said my guardian would do nothing to help and our income was small, and I could 
teach winters and take nothing from the farm. The reply was, "It is little I 
want and I can trust, even when the purse is empty and we are left with a few 
sheep and the cows." I had no argument and only shame kept me from yielding 
to the maternal wish. There seemed a reconciliation when the Doctor would say, 
" The boy comes on well with the books"; but having been out attending a sur- 
gical nasal operation, my preceptor could not say I was in ecstasy over the practice. 

My books were taken along to the district school, where I taught in winter, 
and I made my stay with Dr. Bullard a portion of the time. He had a wide prac- 
tice and was conscientiously solicitous for his patients, and seemed to have no con- 
trol of time night or day, which was a vassalage that was repulsive. In church 
there was no sense of security — a stir or a late arrival would tm-n the Doctor's head, 
expecting a call — filling a position singular for unrest. This circumstance I men- 
tioned, to gain the reply, " I have not been my own man for twenty years. I can 
make little calculation and am denied making visits, and great ills break forth in 
storms which I must face ; besides, Sunday is the special day when all chronics 
want medication." The pictiire was before me — a slave in the mill — and I was 
welding the chains with full warning of a life of vassalage, and I closed the book 
with the remark, "I have wrestled with muscle-insertions ; can name the bones, 
blundering with little Latin, and less Greek, so far, to stop short of the parchment 
of a doctor." From that moment, visions of blood, groans of the sick, fevered and 
expiring breath gave place to a higher mission than mere physical study con- 
fronted with the uncertainties of medicine, a twin profession to the uncertainties 
of law. Dr. Holmes, of poetic fame and professor at Harvard, had not then said : 
"If the entire Materia Medica were thrown into the sea it would be better for men 
and worse for the fishes." 

My decision was a set-back for my old preceptor. Dr. Smith, for he had hinted 
that his gray hairs would call for a partner. I recall that he predicted business 
success, without a i^rophecy or guess as to the fate of the patients. A compound 
blessing is all I have to see in retrospect, having a surmise how often the wolf 
would have been at the door of the family, for I doubt a faculty to have collected 
enough bills to have kept horse for the rider, and materials for even homeopathic 
pills. 



EEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 21 

Tlie great log-ca;bin Harrison campaign was on, and boys of 
spirit took part either in singing songs, or sleeping by initiation 
in a log cabin, said to be with not strict reverence, ''like the gates 
of Gospel grace, ojjen night and day." It was a frolic — a political 
carnival — when the hard times were forgotten in the hope of a 
"change to bring some change"; hunters could find sale for the 
emblematic coons, and old topers had a broad smile, readily doff- 
ing their political coats under the inspiration of hard cider, coming 
forth from the cellars in contribution to the cause. Democrats 
could not indulge in singing, and their drinks were presumably to 
drown impending sorrow in defeat. The Burlington mass meet- 
ing, which took near a week, was a sample. Carriage and wagon 
trips of a hundred miles were made. I left in the Vergennes pro- 
cession at daylight, and we were five hours in going twenty miles, 
in clouds of dust. The ex-Governor, Ezra Meech, came into the 
procession at the front of his log cabin, drawn by a string of 
twenty yoke of oxen, that seemed to keep step to music. In the 
city the noise was almost deafening. Bells were rung, steam 
whistles blew, and cannon boomed, answered by New York guns 
across the lake. Every craft on the lake seemed enlisted for the 
day, and the thousands of teams were taken to the country to find 
room and food. Solomon Foote, of Rutland, later and long United 
States Senator, presided, and used his skill and wonderful voice 
with effect. Speaking of it, twenty-five years after, he said it was 
the proudest day of his life, and the largest meeting he had ever 
seen. This was his timely speech, with a voice on a high key, 
resonant and bold : " The freemen of Vermont will come to order 
— I see you are all here!" There was a sea of faces, hilarious 
shouts, music, vocal and martial, a caricature of the gold spoon, 
and impoverishing free-trade policy — there was the climax of an 
uprising without a parallel in our annals. 

The historic ball was "kept a rolling" from the ocean west- 
ward with increasing furor, to the dismay of veteran court poli- 
ticians. Then came the Maine election. It ended Democratic 
resistance to a sweeping wave, and that story-teller. Senator J. W. 
Nye, referring to his last Democratic S]3eech said, "My heart 
sank within me." There was an inelegant but popular song of 
clubs in halls, and by thousands at camp-fires. The verse based on 
the Old Pine State, ran as follows : 



•2,2 -REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

" And have you heard the news from Maine, 
And what okl Maine can do ? 
She went hell-hent for Governor Kent, 
And Tippecanoe and Tyler too, 
And Tippecanoe and Tyler too." 

Our historians tell of an era of financial prosperity following 
Harrison's election, and a national calamity by the death of the 
President a month after inauguration. It was soon discovered that 
the "Tyler too" had become an ambitious marplot — the twin acci- 
dent to the later Andrew Johnson. 



CHAPTER II. 



DRIFTING FROM HOME. 



A Student — Moot Courts — First Visit to Neio York — Notable 
Events aiid Persons of Half a Century Ago — Oneida Institute — 
Picture of Reformers and Orators, Gerritt Smith, Alvin Stewart, 
President Beriah Green. 

The death of my eldest brother at the South, not only brought 
I a new burden of responsibility, but unsettled plans for the future. 
In 1840, I entered the Classical School of B. F. Allen, in the city 
I of Vergennes, but not to secure all the benefits of the closest appli- 
i cation. The master was easy, classmates were jovial, added to 
! which there were the dissipating allurements of mock courts at late 
j hours. The young attorneys and their students and clerks could 
1 afford the recreation, but not so well could the candidate for admis- 
I sion to college. The farces of the time afforded entertainment, 
( and gave practice in public speaking, but involved mental dissipa- 
I tion, rather than proper discipline. The next school engagement 
I was a pleasant one, with good wages, in Middlebury. The term 
was sadly ended by the decease of my brother, Freeman, who died 
at the age of twenty-one, at Norfolk, Virginia. With the double 
purpose of caring for his effects and entering Yale College, I left 
home, making a stay for several weeks in the great city of IsTew 
York, a new world to the country boy. 

It was a bright, spring mortiing when I stepped from the Hud- 
son river steamboat upon the wharf ; pushing my way in the crowd, 
amidst the howls of hackmen, I turned to purchase some tempting 
fruit, and discovered that my purse was gone. I had read of New 
York pickpockets, and the cold sweat stood on my brow at the 
thought of being a stranger, penniless in a great city. Without a 
recollection of taking my pocketbook from under my pillow in the 
berth, I rushed back to find it undisturbed where I had left it. 
My gratitude was boundless, first lavishing a surprising sum upon 
the chambermaid, and then with an offer of a bank bill to the clerk, 



24 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

who replied, "They wanted no bounty for being honest," which 
was a plea for human nature, I am sorry to say, not always truth- 
fully in the line of some facts in my later experiences. 

WHAT OF THE CITY OF FIFTY YEARS AGO ? 

Stages rumbling over the pavements of cobble-stones, seemed 
almost deafening. Then there was a stench from the gas, one of 
the most offensive of all odors known in human life or from the 
laboratory of science. Water was drawn by wooden pumps from 
the city wells, (most detestable to one accustomed to the pure flow 
from the mountains), and in association with poor drainage by sew- 
ers, and the burial of the city dead — Greenwood and other ceme- 
teries being but in incipient stages of their beauty. 

During my stay in the city, I was not only cautious, but con- 
scientious, and sought to heed the counsel on leaving home, which 
was "to be sure and hear Dr. Gardner Spring preach," the most 
noted divine in the city. Sunday morning, after a long hunt, I 
found the old brick church, since given way to the JVew York 
Times block. Gaily-caparisoned horses and elegant carriages were 
by the walk in charge of liveried coachmen, and, to be sure I was 
to find Dr. Spring, I asked if that was the church. "Does he 
preach to-day?" "Yes, this is his carriage." Yet, some in 
doubt, I said, "Why don't you hitch and go in?" This caused 
a laugh from the company of whips, their spokesman replying, 
"We don't go to church, we hold horses." A verse of the old 
song, ridiculing the President, came fresh to me, as sung in the 
Harrison campaign : 

"Martin's steeds impatient wait 
At the palace door, • 
Outriders behind the coach 
And lackeys on before." 

I attended the church service, and the doctor fell, in my judg- 
ment, below his reputation in the pulpit as a speaker. It was a 
sermon, I guessed, about the heathen, but not so sure as was Dr. R. 
S. Storrs forty years ago, who, when asked the subject of the ser- 
mon to which he listened in his own pulpit, said : " It was about 
the Jews ; I know that was the subject, for the doctor told me so 
as we passed out of the church. " 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 25 

That company of carriage drivers, I mentioned when writing 
home, were perhaps as needy as the foreign heathen, and I wrote 
out the sarcastic reproof given by John Eandolph, of Old Virginia. 
The planters' ladies were met to prepare clothing for the poor Eev- 
olutionary Greeks. Randolph declined to aid their object with his 
purse, and as he passed out espied a crowd of squalid negro chil- 
dren, Avhen he pushed open the door, and shouted : " The Greeks ! 
the Greeks ! Ladies, they're at your door." 

Charles O'Connor, the Irish lawyer, was rising to fame. I was 
fortunate in hearing him in able forensic arguments ; tall, elegant 
in diction, with a dash of youth. Many years later, I heard him 
as the venerable advocate, in the Supreme Court of the United 
States, and at a dinner table socially, when I told him of my early 
admiration. "Ah !" he replied, ''the change — my eye is now dim, 
and normal force Avasted. Once they tried me by the press, and 
their praise was welcome, no doubt. Now I am before a bench on 
trial; not after cases, but anxious to win what I have. Dullness 
in court will be my role at the end of a brief pilgrimage." Of 
course, to this I did not in courtesy assent, in the presence of one 
so genteel and suave, much as I disliked his political Bourbonism. 

Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt was then pointed out, and 
at that day little above the rank of a "steamboat man." He had 
a striking face, a piercing eye, set off by a white, ministerial cra- 
vat, little consonant with the connoisseur of fast horses, and an 
adept with cards; yet loyal and liberal, presenting the govern- 
ment, in its need, with a steam vessel in war time, and endowing 
the Vanderbilt University at Nashville, Tennessee, bearing his 
name. Hon. John I. Blair tells me that in his early career, com- 
ing over to Staten Island from New Jersey, the Commodore would 
give him a boat ride to New York City early, for a silver quarter, 
that he might as a country merchant be the first on the market 
with butter and eggs, having called out to Bill to put out Mr. 
Blair's horses, and mother to get breakfast, which she did barefoot, 
and in an out-kitchen, innocent of any floor ; glad to get up and 
get breakfast for a quarter, by the light of the moon. Then there 
was the unfortunate son, Cornelius (brother of the better known 
than all, the deceased William H. Vanderbilt), whom I knew as 
the Western traveling friend of Horace Greeley. He was great 
hearted, with sundry misfortunes, else Mr. Greeley would not have 
been, as was said, a foolish endorser in the sum of twenty-five 



26 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

thousand dollars, which to the credit of the millionaire, let it be 
said, was paid in full to the family, on Mr. Greeley's decease. 
The unfortunate Cornelius spent an evening at my house in Iowa. 
What an elegant story-teller, and volatile spirit ! " Everybody 
knows brother Bill, who got deep into dad's affection ; I do. But 
suppose he don't like me. We had one mother who never forgot 
Cornele." His head dropped, the tears falling with a sigh, remind- 
ing me of Hamlet's words : 

" One that was a woman ; 
But rest her soul — she's dead." 

My emotional guest, stricken by a temporary fit, fell upon the 
floor. From him I turn with pleasure, reminded that William H. 
Vanderbilt, through Chauncey M. Depew, gave me a thousand dol- 
lars, and promised more, to repair our college, which was destroyed 
by a tornado. His son, Cornelius, is named the philanthropist, 
and his brothers promise, in munificent charities and service, to 
hold a higher rank than the historic founder of the family, whom I 
remember. 

Far back then, in 1841, there was no Vanderbilt palace, nor 
bronze doors, as in 1889, leading to the famous Art Gallery. Now 
there is the delicate and double ofiice in denial, as well as in dis- 
pensing charities. Is there a greater exemption from common 
frailties and ills in the envied palace, than that enjoyed by the 
masses ? Kot long ago, on New Year's Day, there was a long line 
of gaily-dressed grandchildren at the windows of the Vanderbilt 
mansion, witnessing a street pageant. My companion, an M. D., 
and President of the New York Art Club, took little interest in 
the juveniles, saying, "Dead Cornelius was princely, and the crowd 
envy the children; I don't. Even their money will keep them 
effeminate ; they'll have the colic oftener than our children, and 
they won't look or feel any better in a shroud." 

Burton's Theatre was only a name for Burton, the humorist, 
convulsing in laughter, in pantomime ; and it was a popular resort 
for countrymen. His part in "Toodles" gave him fame and per- 
sonality next to that of Edwin Forrest, the tragedian — the inspirer 
of a swarm of amateurs in "Eichard the Third." Forrest was a 
star — Burton the idol of a good kind of play-goers fifty years ago, 
who always cheered the exploit of Mrs. Toodles in attending auc- 
tions, and buying a door-plate at a great bargain, since, with the 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 27 

name of " Thompson " engraved, there was a possibility it wo-uld 
come in use, predicated on a daughter being born to them, grow- 
ing up, and marrying a Thompson. It was a most convulsive 
story on the stage, and I have found the points often like handy 
change, in public speaking, on hits at foolish probabilities — not the 
weather. 

THE AMISTAD STORY, 

A black man — a real African I saw, and it was Martin 
Cinque, the slave mutineer. The slave vessel had been misguided 
by the overpowered owners to Montauk Point. On it were some 
fifty men who were kidnapped for the Cuban slave market. They 
had risen in mutiny, and after killing the captain and one of the 
crew, had trusted the threatened owners to return them to their 
country. When brought before one Judson, a United States Dis- 
trict Judge, the verdict was, they were not to be sent to Cuba for 
trial as murderers and mutineers. An appeal was taken to the 
Supreme Court of the United States, where John Quincy Adams, 
"the old man eloquent," and Hon. E,. S. Baldwin argued on the 
popular just side, and the prisoners were set free by the court. 
The case stirred our young blood, and the Amistad case came to be 
classed with Med, in an English slave trial ; also with that of our 
Dred Scott and Judge Taney, years later. 

At this time, the Tappans were famous in New York, Arthur, 
the silk merchant, as an abolitionist, called out a Southern reward 
of one hundred thousand dollars for his abduction, and was hon- 
ored by a pro-slavery mob. He honored himself by the founding 
of professorships in Auburn Theological Seminary and in Oberlin, 
besides other great gifts for those days, akin to the aid in opening 
Broadway Tabernacle, a spacious building for popular and reform 
meetings. 

Lewis Tappan and Eev. Joshua Leavitt were said to have the 
Africans in charge, as they raised money for their defense. Mr. 
Tappan had brothers, Benjamin, senator from Ohio, and John Tap- 
pan, in Boston ; the blood, with a personal knowledge of Louis in 
later years, won my admiration. If there was an escaping fugi- 
tive, he knew through Tappan where to find shelter. Such was 
the merchant who, for twenty years, was treasurer of the Amer- 
ican Missionary Society (I think without pay), and who holds 
rightfully a higher place in our eventful annals than the great 



28 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

laAvyers and Vaiiclerbilts. Here you liave the man with keen eye, 
elegant person, overflowing with humor, standing beside the tall, 
liberated, black man. Cinque. "What do you say ? They are like 
our millions whose ancestors were brought here by kidnappers. 
"Would you have risen if doomed to slavery ? " The crowd shouted 
" Yes ! " What shall we do, disperse them, poor and ignorant, or 
educate them? The response was "Educate!" Then give us 
money and we will send them back — not slaves but missionaries. 

Martin Cinque was tall, erect, with a noble brow, and, as it 
was learned from his nation, the son of an African chief, a very 
prince in his bearing, and was the mutinous hero of that day. 
From this sprang the Mendi-African Mission. 

From a sight of the lions of that day, since so often described, 
I turned, taking a steamboat for New Haven, Connecticut. Yale 
College I had chosen, but did not spend much time with profess- 
ors and about the buildings, which seemed low and gloomy (less 
attractive than the elms), and they were, compared with their pres- 
ent splendor. 

By the help of a rather free Vermont boy, I got a glimpse of 
the " wild ones," and of the costly scrapes and dangerous episodes 
of student life. To be rested and to read up for examination, I 
took the cars for Meriden, eighteen miles, it being my first railroad 
ride. Here I found my favorite cousin. Miss Fitch, the ward of 
the venerable Eev. Erastus Ripley. He was merry, beguiling me 
with checkers and after-dinner games, varying the entertainment 
by an excited discussion as an anti-slavery man with a near neigh- 
bor, Mr. Booth, deacon and bank president. My situation came 
up on review — age, orphanage and aspirations — when my learned 
friend feared that the tone of student morals at Yale and the con- 
servatism in the old courses of study would endanger the boy's 
future. Of course, he was a partisan radical. 

"What are years in Latin and Greek to be in the next fifty 
years ? Slavery is to be kept under, Texas kept out, church made 
bold and political platforms expurgated, and brave, good speakers 
will be in more demand than classic book-worms. Hear what that 
scholar of Yale, Dr. Grimke, of South Carolina, says: 'I prefer 
Sir Walter Scott to Homer. Then for smutty old poetry, give 
place to the Bible in Greek and Hebrew.' I agree with him. 
Lawyers are too plenty. Therefore give us a race of students with 
backbone and courage for the coming great days." 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 29 

So I remember. And there was a mention of Mr. Hough, who 
had gone out as financier at Oneida Institute, near Utica, to help 
Beriah Green, president, one of the finest of scholars and grandest 
of men. 

Said the venerable Mr. Eipley : " My son, I have placed money 
in that college, where there is a farm to use the muscle, and good 
professors with a high moral tone. Come, what do you say ? I 
have no boy and I advise you to go there." My reply was that I 
knew no one. "I do, and will give you a letter to President 
Green ; and if on trial you don't like it, I will pay for the jour- 
"ney." The hearty earnestness of the old divine captured me, and 
I was even then quite hospitable to his radical ideas, and said: 
"Write the letter and I will go." The journey was made by way 
of New York, and I left the steamer at Albany, taking a canal 
boat ride of one hundred miles for Whitesboro. I handed my 
introduction to Mr. Green, who was most genial and gave me a 
temporary stay at the house, where the winsome daughters did 
much to mitigate homesickness and unrest with new school associ- 
ations, the product of radical ideas and a new social birth of 
society. 

Between our times and those of half a century ago, there seems 
only the comparison between the time of sowing and that of the 
harvest. Great ideas were getting rooted in the national soil. 
Radical reforms now measurably accomplished, were then under 
debate. Men lauded now, were then ignored and despised. The 
first prophets are never popular. Questions of reform, of temper- 
ance, and their kindred themes were then unsolved, even more 
than now. Restless minds were breaking loose from the dictation 
of conservatives upon the wrong side of morals. Compromises 
were in the air. The pooling of moral issues was the dominant 
business of the generation, at the expense of the truth. The great 
educational and benevolent organizations were too generally found 
upon the side of doubtful conservatism. The curse of slavery 
reached many indirect issues. 

It was an heroic age — an age in which principles of truth were 
striving for recognition in the lives of those bold enough to be 
right, rather than popular. Among the few institutions that dared 
to risk their success upon the carrying out of ideas hostile in their 
time, was the Oneida Institute, at Whitesboro, New York. It was 
the hot-bed of radicalism as it existed at that day. Many of its 



30 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

ideas have become a part of the national life ; while others are still 
on debatable ground. There was a heavy brain at its head ; and 
there were great men back of it. The Oneida Institute was 
attempting the unsolved question of combining education with 
manual labor. Its chosen curriculum was in favor of the lan- 
guages of the living, and sacred languages, rather than of the dead ; 
it was too far ahead of the times. But whatever the question of 
its experiments, its avowed object was never lost sight of. It was 
the home of freedom; its pupils were trained for practical men in 
the coming struggles of the Kepublic. 

The influence of such an institution was never lost upon the 
young student who turned his back upon Yale, to gain the advan- 
tages under such an instructor as the renowned President, Eev. 
Beriah Green. Added to his natural intuitions upon the side of 
freedom, were the instructions here received. The Institute lost 
its peculiar status a generation ago ; but among those who sat at 
the feet of President Green, its principles have lived in power. 

The Students. 

Such a motley company ! Manual labor, and radicalism as to 
studies and slavery, had gathered a large school. Young casuists, 
others the wards of rich reformers, not to mention a class sent to a 
good place for safety — fit subjects for rustication. I found in the 
study of the pupils object lessons related to the ludicrous. There 
were an emancipator's boys from Cuba; mulattoes removed from 
their sable mother — illegitimates (said to be), under an alias; 
the high tempered Spanish student, Slingerland his name, whose 
slinging an iron poker at me left an impression ; then an Indian, 
with that inelegant name, Kunkapot, the calling of which created 
a laugh; black men who had served as sailors, or as city hack- 
men, also the purest Africans escaped from slavery, of a class like 
the eloquent Garnet, the protege of Joseph Sturge, the English 
reformer; sons of the American radicals, Bible students scanning 
Hebrew verse with ease, in place of Latin odes ; enthusiasts, plow- 
boys and printers ; also real students of elegant tastes, captured by 
the genius of President Green. I do not know that there was a 
man looking fiercer by the wearing of a mustache, not then in fash- 
ion, or one failing to be guyed who had any foreign foppery airs. 
The most were real Democrats, save as to politics. Pedigree did 



REMINISCENCES OF ^FOETY YEARS. 31 

not furnish, envied notoriety, and there was not the least social or 
official toleration of a lazy, dissolute character. The non-resistance 
doctrines of the Garrison and the peace party were not welcome to 
me whose blood leaped in a warm, youthful challenge. Such were 
the collegians without base ball, yacht recreation, or gymnasium; 
but with a hand fire-engine there was diversion in quickening the 
step, or lowering the hauteur of pretenders; occasionally giving 
a sprinkle, if not a forced ablution to a flunk in our impromptu 
debates, which were both novel and serviceable. There was a class 
of inceptive pedagogues who were primed for a First of August 
emancipation, or a Fourth of July address ; Henry B. Stanton, of 
our creed and clan, being the model orator, and Theodore Weld, 
the radical oracle. 

It was the day of the ecclesiastical excommunication of temper- 
ance and abolition agitators. Runaway slaves and pro-slavery 
mobs furnished food for morbid appetites, and Birney, the Ken- 
tucky emancipator, became a lion in the path, rather than a mere 
diversion to the leaders who were in a Presidential race with Polk 
and Clay, rivals in subserviency to the slaveholding power. 

It is history that the hobbies of Oneida Institute furnished 
what became the horses on which politicians afterward compla- 
cently rode to place and power, oblivious of those who once stood 
in the breach with heroism, to rescue our trailed flag and honor 
from the jeers of the world. In that whirl there was a fascination. 
I found more diversion in debates and in the writing of colloquies 
for exhibitions, than in severe studies. In Greek and Hebrew I 
made fair progress only, and graduated without a diploma, only 
because the State Begents, to punish radical innovation, had 
denied the Board of Trustees power to confer degrees. Thus for 
the honorary degree of A. M., I was indebted to the favor of Mid- 
dlebury College, Vermont, some years later. 

Among the heroic and notable men of their time, stands a 
remarkable trio. Each in his own sphere was a power : Green, the 
scholar ; Stewart, the legal genius ; Smith, the millionaire-philan- 
thropist ; so they are classed to-day. 

THE DISTINGUISHED TRIO. 

Gerrit Smith, of Peterboro, N. Y., was a distinguished patron 
and ardent friend of President Green, and a frequent speaker 



32 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

before the students of Oneida College, a Hamilton College scholar 
of distinction, a patron in the heirship of townships and lands, and 
a generous, active philanthropist, all conspiring to throw about 
him the glamour of a real hero. I never heard a finer toned, mel- 
lifluous voice, nor was he less striking in elegance of person and 
gentlemanly suavity. It was in resisting pro-slavery mobs and 
in defence of freedom of speech, that he came first to be the 
champion of human rights, and made choice of the society of com- 
mon people, rather than to dwell in the seclusion of his palace, 
which he closed, and later gave to a dissenting congregation for 
worship, choosing a humbler home with leisure for greater service 
to reform. The proffer of a senatorship or of a governor's chair, 
was no attraction ; and it was only on the dawn of a new era that 
he assented to serve in Congress, developing a versatile speaker, 
an original and bold legislator. It was an idiosyncrasy in his 
character to abjure the maxim that "consistency is a jewel," tak- 
ing pride in those moral perceptions which made it a truism "He 
who never changes his opinion never corrects mistakes." That he 
was the Chesterfield radical of his day, is cognate to the fact that 
he was the wealthiest American of the munificent givers to educa- 
tion and the cause of temperance and freedom. His epitaph might 
read: "The cause which he knew not he searched out." Wealth 
never ministered to pride, defeat never embittered the spirit, 
hushed his voice, or enfeebled his blows. In boldness, he was the 
companion of Horace Greeley, in going on the bail bond of Jeffer- 
son Davis, who became a huge political elephant, long imprisoned, 
when demanding a trial. Secretly he was the patron of John 
Brown in Kansas (I have it from Brown's own lips), but of the 
purposed raid in Virginia he was not aware. Mr. Smith gave 
thousands of acres of land to make homes for colored people, and 
died in 1874, leaving a son, Mr. Green Smith, named for his 
friend, and a daughter, Mrs. Miller, of Utica, New York. 

Alvin Stewart, of Utica, a witty, eloquent and retired lawyer 
and reformer, was a character. A few of his hits, passing like 
good currency among the students, I may give prefatory. At the 
conventions, on calls for donations, his tact and drollery would be 
known with a solemn look and magisterial presence. When tak- 
ing names for donations, a colored student came up with a five- 
dollar contribution. "Your name, sir?" "Prime, is the name." 
"A prime gentleman whose paper wants no indorsement." Next, 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 33 

Freeman, a jet black : "This is to be the cognomen of your race — 
a little off color just now." The city of Utica came up with its 
mob spirit. "This is not the poetic 'pent-up Utica'; our scoun- 
drels only burnish their fame on departure." Then court wit is 
remembered. The question was as to ownership and discovery of 
a spring. The counsel had not the most savory reputation ; there- 
upon Mr. Stewart asked: "Suppose Satan had appeared in person 
and claimed he had taken the first drink from the spring, and 
employed my learned counsel to enforce his claim, as I have no 
doubt he would, could that be called a precedent, a law, to keep 
out my Christian client ? " This character was given to a defend- 
ant : " Whatever his family or profession, don't overlook his misfor- 
tune as that of a peripatetic somnambulist and ' wanderer up-stairs 
and down-stairs and in the lady's chamber'," Mr. Stewart'^s 
appearance at our college and as president of state temperance and 
anti-slavery conventions, brought an ovation, and made variety 
where the voices of the eloquent, elegant Stanton, the solemn 
Goodell, the logic of Green, and the rotundity of Gerritt Smith 
were heard and seen. His elegant palatial home, variegated in 
color by stale mobocratic eggs, had an owner who towered then 
justly above all other notables of that city whom I afterward 
knew — Governor Seymour, Senators Kernan and Conkling, and 
Justice Ward Hunt — as did his house above theirs, less conspicu- 
ous in that early epoch. Great as they were, they can never be 
named more than the peer of Stewart as a hero, nor have they left 
mo-re striking proofs of an orator. Mr. Stewart, in early days, 
often addressed the State Legislature on radical politics. In Ver- 
mont, the old men remember him by this incident : the question 
was up of forbidding slaveholders to retain a claim on their chat- 
tels while in the North. He was in the State House by the 
mountain range, and apostrophised : " Slavery in Vermont ! Clank- 
ing of chains on the soil where Seth Warner and Ethan Allen 
sleep? No!" Pausing and looking out of the window, "Your 
old mountains would hold their breath and refuse to send forth an 
echo of your degradation ! " He died too soon, without witnessing 
the fruition of his hopes, yet not to be forgotten. 

President Beriah Green was of this noted triumvirate. He 
gained his collegiate education in Vermont, and was for years a 
pastor, until called to a professorship in Western Eeserve College. 
A striking, pleasant face, and vivacious manners, were in happy 



34 BE3IINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

association with the scholar, in deep sympathy with the spirit of 
Goethe, the philosophy of Coldridge, also that of an ardent friend 
and correspondent of the English rugged Carlyle. His protest 
against the ethics of the "tall ecclesiastics" was more than 
verbal — even a close personal alliance with great reform, disre- 
garding obloquy and sacrifice. A spirit genial as the summer sun, 
proven integrity, varied learning, and eloquence reaching sub- 
limity, would have made him a striking character in the best cir- 
cles of citizens and reformers. With him, work had little less 
virtue than worship. More than theories were held in regard to 
the value of manual labor. He practiced as an exemplar, earning 
bread by the sweat of his brow. Character was a product won by 
sacrifice at the "roaring loom of time." An incident in society 
would become the basis of a sermon, and students, alike with vet- 
eran agitators and scholars, would crowd to hear the more than 
transcendental oracle, a preacher with a text, " Duty, stern daugh- 
ter of the voice of God." In his career, there was proof of the 
lion heart, for he knew no failure ; and, waiting for the bright day 
of the emancipation, he fell as he lived, while making a speech 
against the licensing of saloons, at the post of duty, in 1874. If 
his life Avas not an epic, neither was his career one of ambition, 
like a Cambyses, marching through the desert to awaken the 
screams of hungry vultures, leaving no monument but a Golgotha 
heap of human sacrifices — nay, it was of a white-winged evangel 
pleading for the poor, and for Justice in the temple where Liberty, 
with the weeds of widowhood, had long stood crownless. The 
humorous incidents related of this great character and family, were 
many. An old student, meeting the President in after years, lean- 
ing on his hoe, and wearing a high, old-fashioned hat, heard a 
young son, with much gravity, while violently knocking off the hat, 
say : "Have I not told you repeatedly not to be seen with that old 
hat on again, especially in company ? " The reproof was : " What 
do you mean, John, by such rudeness?" At breakfast, after a 
juvenile spat, possibly discipline, one of the boys was called on for 
his table verse in the round, and muttered, " I'm a brother to drag- 
ons and a companion to owls — in the daytime." On a special 
occasion, a stranger student was called on to pray, and he offered 
so long and loud a supplication that there was less devotion than 
merriment on the seats. Mr. Green followed him in the most sub- 
dued tone with his elegant and sarcastic reproof, " We thank thee, 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 35 

Lord, that Thou art not deaf ! " My mature judgment is, that 
Mr. Green came out "separate" too early. Inside there was room 
for his genius, courage and eloquence. Church and nation were 
asleep. 

It should he mentioned that a few were specially favored by 
the kind attentions of the President and family. In such a spirit- 
ual atmosphere, and with its elevated conversation, the social pow- 
ers were developed for a larger usefulness in later days. Sabbath 
after Sabbath was spent among the outlying churches and Sabbath- 
schools in such efforts as not only became a valued help to them, 
but also developed in us that readiness of utterance and individu- 
ality of thought that were so absolutely essential in preparation for 
usefulness. The equipment of the Institute with a printing press, 
upon which the Friend of Man was published, gave a knowledge of 
affairs such as are associated with the press everywhere. 

The favorite recreation of the students was in impromptu 
debates. Scores of questions would be put into a hat, and drawn 
out for the speaker after he had been called to the platform and 
introduced by the presiding officer of the society. It was a men- 
tal pastime that tested the boys, and gave a strength that comes 
with such wrestling and mental encounter. The stimulus that it 
gave to general reading and ready wit was indispensable, though 
the contestants knew it not. 

In all departments of the Institute the criticisms were of the 
freest, and every man was compelled- to become bold for the truth; 
that was taught as ranking above all else. Thus, in all directions, 
bodily, mental and spiritual, by manual labor, the dialectics of the 
lyceum, and the cultivation of a profoundly reverent regard for the 
truth, the students were being symmetrically equipped for the 
service of humanity, that has never had a reformer too many, 
nor a well-wisher who could be spared. 

In later years, a former editor of the Friend of Man has thus 
voiced his recollections of the boy, Grinnell; recollections called 
out by an article upon the Iowa pioneer's relation to sheep-raising 
in the State of Iowa. It was Wesley Bailey, editor, and father of 
Senator Bailey, of Decorah, Iowa, who wrote the following 
editorial twenty-five years ago, after inviting the youth to a 
partnership : 

"We are not only interested in sheep-raising, but we also feel an interest in 
the above-named Grinnell. We knew him when a student in Oneida Institute, 



36 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

New York — a bright, active youngster, a close scholar, and a genial and intelli- 
gent companion, always busy, and ready to turn his hand to anything that turned 
up, either when school kept, or the vacation occurred, but always seeking to be 
useful. His after life turns out to be just what such a youth gave promise of. He j 

is at home in the pulpit, the Senate chamber, or the large political convention, as j 

well as active in the real agricultural improvements which are most sure to enrich 
and develop the State of his adoption. We have not seen him since he was a 
young man, but the youth is still fresh in our recollection, and having taken a 
' liking ' to the boy, we note with feelings of pleasure his career of honor and use- 
fulness through life." 



CHAPTEE III. 

False Theories — Cluh Life — Westward, ho! — Wisconsin Prairies — • 
Codding, the Abolition Orator — The Home of the Badger — 
A Volume — A Return East — A Student in Auburn Theological 
Seminarrj — First Call to Preach — Union Village, New York — 
My Mother'' s Death. 

Fifty years ago seems to have been the period not alone of agi- 
tation, but of wild theories as to abstinence and privation, to 
insure a clear brain and the good of an ambitious student. I fell 
into the procession so far as to enter upon an almost insane 
extreme in abstinence and physical infliction in Oneida Institute, 
to attain the greatest good in the briefest period. This was the 
personal diary resolve : " To escape dullness and promote mental 
activity with a moral purpose, I abjure high living, the use of cof- 
fee and tea, vacate the feather bed, and take up a club regimen 
where butter and meat are unused, and the hard bed, made by a 
blanket on a board, shall be my couch. My place I will take as 
cook, steward, etc., in rotation, and, to save time, will in my turn 
read while others at the club eat, that we may become more profi- 
cient in history, and find themes for discussion outside of dissipat- 
ing gossip." This is the sequel : The cost of living was reduced to 
a dollar a week ; but the experiment of German scholars, 2)acing up 
and down in their halls, without fire, and the theories of bran 
bread philosophers, are not held to be cardinal virtues in a scholar. 
After such a regime as led to unpadding the bones, making more 
than a few hours' continuous sleep a condition of pain, bringing 
feeble nerves and a weak digestion, there was a demand for out- 
door life and the practices of wiser men were adopted after severe 
delusive trial. 

At this crisis, I wrote I could not indulge in a season at Sara- 
toga, and was vain enough to think that I could speak to edifica- 
tion, and that with a dash of an '< unfledged reformer " in a heroic 
role, I might rattle the bones, seemingly very dry, in the valleys of 



38 EE21INISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

conservatism. At this time, I made public profession of religion, 
which was a surprise amidst spiritual iceberg surroundings of a 
circle of sceptics, where I took up an affirmative defense of the 
orthodox system. I look back with pleasure on this yielding to 
conviction of duty, stimulating to a higher life, and preparation 
for public service. I soon foimd myself deprecating the yellow 
trash literature, in the hands of so many students, and advocating 
the claims of good books, and passing out the publications of the 
American Tract Society for sale or gift, under a system of colport- 
age. Through my friend, J. M. Clark, I was introduced to the 
head office in New York, from which I received tempting offers to 
remain in New York, declining which, I was alloAved to be an 
assistant to my friend, Clark, then at the head of colportage in 
Wisconsin. With him I found what I coveted — iudependent 
humble service in out-door life on what was then the frontier. 

WESTWARD, HO ! 

This was in the summer and fall of 1844, and my first visit to 
Wisconsin, then a territory. Chicago was not then reached from 
the East by a railroad, and the staunch steamer "Madison," which 
was our craft from Buffalo, encountered a rough passage described 
and known ad nauseam. Nothing seemed to gain a hearing save 
politics, Polk and Clay being the presidential candidates. Boat 
discussion prompted the wildest bets, cool men putting up all their 
money on the result. In one instance, a lady in tears called me 
aside, saying that her husband had asked for their all, one thou- 
sand dollars in gold, which he staked on Polk's election. I had 
spoken in a social religious meeting in the cabin, anc]. was urged to 
break up the bet. This was my desire, so I said, " Wait until we 
reach Cleveland," which we did, and, going ashore, I found that 
Polk was the victor, and returned to the boat with news which 
saved the family from penury, for the Clay men were ardent and 
confident. 

We landed at Milwaukee, not the beautiful city of to-day v/ith 
more than two hundred thousand people — then of seven thousand. 
The most striking facts were fifty lawyers ; also, bands of redmen, 
painted, and low-necked ponies loaded with pappooses, peltry and 
baskets. I became a correspondent of the New York Tribune, and 
sent such florid descriptions of the great country to be, that what I 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 39 

wrote in letters and of facts, the State printed into a little work, 
" The Home of the Badgers," to induce emigration to the State. 
Certainly the people came, and have made a grand State of nearly 
two millons of people. My destination was Prairieville, distant 
from the lake, at the home of Jonas M. Clark, to be his lieutenant 
with his books as my health would admit. Arriving at night in 
the little town, in my anxiety to see a real prairie, I took a long 
stroll after daylight to see a virgin realty only as yet read of, 
detailed my adventure at a late and delayed breakfast, and earned 
a laugh for a model tenderfoot. There were only fenced farms 
near, but take these away and houses, and you have our " unshorn 
gardens," a definition which was a delight to my romantic fancy. 
Afterward I saw them really flat, in other places the billows of 
the sea ; even a marsh prairie lire, a sight worth a thousand mile 
trip. I was lost in sight of the now beautiful college town of 
Waupun, having the light of distant prairie fire and the guide of 
an Indian hunter, to the site of a saw-mill and a farmer's hospita- 
ble roof. An open winter was one of almost fathomless mud, and 
the malaria was conducive to ague, only kept away by medicine. 
I have never yet seen a person in a real ague shake. 

It was a time of great religious activity and excited discus- 
sions on temperance and slavery. Independents and users of a 

I free larsce were in demand by the masses, while bright minds, 

I able speakers and abundance of funds, contributed to a political 

I evolution. 

j Hon. Edward D. Holton, of Milwaukee, still an eminent, good 

I citizen of that city, was then a young orator. Hon. Charles 
Durkee became a radical Territorial delegate in Congress and 
United States Senator, while Ichabod Codding made the circuit of 
the counties as one of the most effective orators of the country. I 
drop a tear to his memory, and express my admiration for his tal- 

] ents, the companion and peer of Love joy. It was of him that Ste- 
phen A. Douglas said, "There would be no amusement in debating 

I with him on the prairies of Illinois." In a true emotional mood, 
he made many weep ; in a story there was great merriment, and in 
denunciation of wrong there were the deep tones of indignation. 
Missouri slave owners, then in Wisconsin, secretly held their serv- 
ants, and fleeing fugitives were common. This is a sample of the 

I orator, Codding : 

"Would you secrete or turn back the escaped ?" was the burn- 



40 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

ing question. The Bible and human instincts were the basis of 
appeal, and the comparison was the supposition of your child cap- 
tured by the Indians. The infant is kidnapped, and after years of 
anguish is given up as lost. Then comes a secret history as to the 
lost child. "Now the captive is in a wigwam, unable to flee. 
The father watches for the absence of the braves, and in the dead 
of night grasps his long-lost boy from the savages. He mounts 
the swiftest pony ! What ! Steal a horse ? No ! Take one, as 
the drowning cling to a floating plank ! In his flight God shields 
him from bullets, covers his head, and home is reached. The 
mother weeps, and kisses her boy ; the neighborhood is roused with 
joy over the rescue. Hark ! In the dull prayer-meeting there is 
praise — hallekijah; except when the good deacon hints about tak- 
ing property, and snatching the boy from the family ; don't say 
what he might do ; but ' the Constitution calls on us to send back 
niggers.' The old mother says they were stolen and the white 
thief is no better than an Indian kidnapper. 'Ah, Deacon, would 
you send them back?'" shouts Codding. There is silence. "I 
poll the house. All who would send back the white boy, rise." 
None ! " Now, what better before God is a white boy than a black 
one ? " Silence again ! " All who would send back a panting, 
fugitive black man, rise." None! "I have won my case. Slave- 
holding is man-stealing, and tested by the heart, there is only one 
throb in all ages." This is but the outline of a speech given with 
the finest imagery and deepest pathos. "Politic lips belie the 
heart. Throw away your party shackles! Send Durkee to Con- 
gress — an Abolitionist, Holton, to Congress — sponsors at the bap- 
tismal font when Wisconsin comes into the Union." Durkee was 
elected. 

During my visit to the Territory I met the Eev. John Lewis, 
of New Diggings, whose wife Avas the daughter of Harlan Page, 
both of whom were from New York City, and most devoted in 
their work. Their experiences were as thrilling in story as their 
labors were salutary in restraint, and elevating in a society where 
few of the delights of home were possible. In my review of life 
I count no labor so much appreciated, or affording me so much sat- 
isfaction as my service with the now lamented Lewis, and for a 
people exposed to the temptations of camps and strolling outcasts. 
Remembrance of home and the finer instincts asked for counsel to 
the dying, and a funeral service. On one occasion, while Eev. Mr. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 41 

Lewis was sick, there came a call to attend the funeral of a young 
lawyer at Lancaster, the county seat. It was on Sunday morning, 
and a second messenger left the request, but too late for the word 
that the minister was sick. Thereupon I was asked to take his 
place. I was not a minister, either in name or in fact, but to my 
remonstrance was the answer that they knew neither of us, and 
"go right on." I did; and only after the service did 1 inform 
them that I was not Mr. Lewis, he being sick. Then came one of 
the trials of my life in making a decision. There was no resident 
minister in the young, ambitious town, and the young men hur- 
riedly got up a liberal subscription to induce me to stay and 
occupy the Court House on Sundays. It did not avail that I was 
no minister, and on restored health was to return East and study 
theology. They wanted only one sermon, and pleaded for a year 
before return. My answer was, "Independents were often irreg- 
ular, but this is a good reason for preparation. A miner would not 
use a dull pick ; and the blade to cut grass is a good mower sharp- 
ened in the morning hour." That was my case. Why I did not 
yield to their solicitation, with a light purse, and where there was 
a promise of good, I do not know, unless under the control of that 
divinity that shapes our ends. 

That occasion is associated with this excerpt from a letter in 
my volume, " Home of the Badgers " : 

"Passing to Lancaster I found abundance of blackberries, crab-apples, goose- 
berries, wild plums and other indigenous fruit. I enumerated the game I saw, 
and what I heard. Two deer were bounding in the distance. I saw the gray 
squirrel; rabbits darting into the bushes; and heard the prairie hen calling 
together' her brood, and the music of the birds that sang in the oaks. The thrush 
and the sweetest prairie singers gave voluntaries, and I thought of the poet's true 
answer to the question, ' What does the bird say ? ' 

" ' But the lark is so brimful of gladness and love, 
The green fields below him, the blue sky above, 
That he sings, and he sings, and forever sings he, 
I love my love and my love loves me.' 

" From observation. Grant county presents inducements equal to, if not greater 
than any other county in the territory. Its commercial facilities, the high cash 
market in the mines, are not to be overlooked. In this village there is no groggery, 
and a large portion of the citizens are from New England and New York. A 
paper is published here called the Grant County Herald. The Fourth of July is 
over and there are but few villages in this region that have not run out their flags 
and drank their toasts. The soul of repose is in activity — on that day I rode 
twenty miles in a buggy, attempted a public speech ; rode fifteen miles by steam 
on the Mississippi — gazed at 'fire-works' in Dubuque until eleven o'clock at night, 



42 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

and then without grumbling slept on the floor, as five hundred others did who 
slept there that night. 

"The temptations to business and land purchases were not less than those to 
professional life. Beaver Dam then was only an incipient city with saw-mill and 
log houses. I came near buying a half interest in it of Mr. Ordway, and was only 
deterred by the fear of damages to lands by a dam across the outlet of Fox lake, 
which furnishes a fine water power, the niicleus of a city of seven or ten thousand 
people. Eich as that purchase might have made me, in looking backward I never 
have since had a regretful thought of the lost opportunity, and think less of the 
sentiment than of the rhythm — 

" ' Of all sad words of tongue or pen, 

The saddest are these — it might have been.' 

"My return Eastward was by the way of Chicago, slighting those bargains 
offered in lots, the possession of which has brought colossal wealth. The late 
' Long John ' Wentworth at my side said, ' bid, bid.' I did bid, but too low." 

In a letter to a classmate dated from Racine, in November, 
1844, there is a glimpse of the discomforts of the trip: 

"After three weeks I tell you more of "Wisconsin. They have had an October 
snow-storm, which was unprecedented. I was chilled almost to numbness, by 
twenty-four miles ride in it ; but it must be forgotten, as we are now visited with 
the more than ordinary delights of autumn. It has been my fortune in riding two 
hundred miles to be sloughed but once. It was on a cross-road after a rain. My 
biiggy was in to the axle — horse flouncing on his side. It was a fit time to con- 
sider one's 'condition and prospects.' By neighborly aid I was extricated, and 
shall look to my going in future. I have found traveling accommodations gener- 
ally good. The exceijtions would be, when the light of the candle was put out by 
the wind coming through a hole in the logs, which was large enough for a middle- 
sized fox-hound to crawl through to be my company. At this place, after enjoying 
refreshing sleep, I was greeted over my head Avith bright starlight. I looked up 
and had a full view of some acquaintances in the constellations, through a hole in 
the roof full three inches by five. The circumstance was so amusing that I gazed 
until twilight. This is a new country incident, but not an uncommon one here." 

Here is a description given of a prairie in Dodge county, in the 
winter time : 

"The prairie is full eighteen miles long, including angles — from two to five 
miles wide, and on either side are groves of timber. The farms are made on the 
edge and the road, which is in the middle of the prairie, is smooth and hard as a 
pavement at this season of the year. It is five miles to a house and as I pass I 
ask, "What solitude is like this, and who can choose words to describe a prairie in 
the winter? The fluttering insect of summer had ceased its music and the unre- 
sisted winds of the prairie had driven all that once lived there, into the groves ; 
the trees were almost lost in the great distance ; and in this loneliness, one's strength, 
wit or wisdom were viseless. The ground was undulating where I rode and wave 
after wave rose before me in the distance, and, above, the slow-moving cloud threw 
over me the soft mantle of its shadow. The prairie fire had just gone out and not 
a dry leaf, stalk or shrub was seen. Even the stones were smoked to the color of 



EEMIJSriSCUNCES OF FORTY YEARS. 43 

the sod, and over the extended hue of darkness there was but the gray winding path, 
which was as a chain and guide to cherished expectation. I crossed during the 
day the Black Hawk trail ; it awakened peculiar sensations, to come upon the foot- 
steps of so noisy a predecessor. I could hardly keep my eye from it, yet would not 
be considered even a chance-won worshiper of that little line which could be just 
seen in the varying surface of the prairie." 

From such a scene, we catch in the succeeding paragraph the 
story of a prairie on fire. I had taken a by-road in order to 
shorten the distance from that upon the highway : 

"To save a few miles I lost many hours. The sun hid itself, and notwith- 
standing four or five miles to the right or left would have brought me to the road — 
still I galloped in a circle over brooks, on the ice and through high marsh rushes 
and thickets, till my nag was weary. After having warmed myself by burning a 
log and heaped together several pair of deer's horn, left by the spring where the 
Indians had cooked and camped, I let my horse take his own course. In less than 
half an hour I was brought to a road like a by-path ; here I saw the sun setting and 
learned my direction. On my left was a marsh extending a mile, covered with a 
crop of grass and rushes from four to six feet high. I was in a grove, and hearing 
the crack of a rifle I looked again and could just distinguish a few Indians across 
the marsh. The dry limbs were falling about me, as the wind blew with great vio- 
lence from the west. The autumn fire had gone over the ground where I was rid- 
ing, but had not crossed the marsh, which was now frozen over, leaving the tall 
grass to wave above. Little did I think that amid the anxieties of a man lost in 
the woods, I was to be awakened to a sight not to be described by the intellectual 
dreamer and only equaled by the mad flame that dances on the roofs of the burning 
city. A thick cloud of smoke first reached me in the strong breeze. As it passed 
over, my horse wheeled, threw np his ears and faced the wind. A fire had been 
set and was fast feeding itself above the icy bottom. At first it moved slowly and 
the flame rose but a few feet, but soon it was fairly rooted and heat was generated 
which was to be the companion of the wind. A number of fires are set, and as 
they widen and dart forward, what a retinue there is of fabled nymphs and tritons 
in the many-colored blaze; now the smoke and blaze are uniting — now they sepa- 
rate ; the curling flame rises higher, flaps like the light canvas and bends with the 
breeze and another fire is devouring. Each breath of flame outleaps the last. The 
crackling of the knotted reed at first faintly heard, is now like the near and con- 
fused snap of ten thousand locusts. The air is heated, and one sheet of flame 
dashes in quick succession over another — it is like a race of steeds. The one with 
the fairest wind sweeps before the rest and robs them of their fuel. It was a glare 
of beauty and splendor — a sure messenger of death to all that made race with that 
wind-fed fire. One could only lose himself in this view so far above the most brill- 
iant imagery. I had before seen a burning prairie, but it was only a fitful flashing, 
compared to the strides of those devouring demons, that in a moment turned that 
yellow waving plain into a low pall, that rests on nature in darkness. 

" I turned into the path and saw an Indian, with his rifle, who had been watch- 
ing for game that might be driven out by the fire. I made no words with him, 
knowing that he could not be less than out of tobacco, and would have as little 
morbid sensibility in coaxing a few shillings from my pocket as we have in making 
good farms of their hunting grounds. Passing on I soon reached a stopping place 
for the night, and women and children very innocently laughed at my getting lost 
in Dodge county." 



44 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 



EASTWARD. 



Upon returning from Wisconsin with restored health and spir- 
its, there was no longer any wavering as to a choice of profession. 
I entered the Theological Seminary of Auburn, New York, largely 
under the influence of the early friend of my father and mother, 
their honored pastor. Doctor Hopkins. The earlier devotion of 
the parents to the pastor Avas now bearing its unlooked-for fruit. 
Of the Theological Seminary he was a trustee. He was also min- 
ister to the first Presbyterian Church. He had no children living, 
and I was made a welcome guest at his house until failing health 
caused his resignation from the pulpit, and I was then made wel- 
come in the house of his relative, Mr. Job Ailing, one of the kind- 
est of gentlemen. 

Dr. Hopkins was an entertaining story-teller, also a theological 
writer and author. His reminiscences were striking, but his psy- 
chology and severe logic I remember to have listened to only by 
courtesy. On my later Vermont visits I found the old people who 
confirmed the lively stories written out from recollection. More 
than once the old incidents were repeated in which the Doctor was 
compelled to acknowledge his part. Two of these, by no means 
legendary, are here given out of their chronological order because 
they refer to associations gathered about the man. They are 
given in vivid recollection. 

Shall I recite the wolf hunt story ? 

"In the early days depredations on the flocks aroused the 
neighborhood for a hunt, if the invaders did not early escape to 
their lairs. These occasions were usually in the line of special 
providence which often makes doctors busy on Sunday — the day 
also of great battles. At this time the men of the congregation 
were missing, and the excitement of the ring, near by, withdrew a 
majority of the women, and what was there for the minister but to 
follow ; and, as I have some repute as a good shot, a youngster in 
line passed his gun to me, and as he told it, ' the wolf coming in 
sight, the parson shut his eyes, saying, Heaven direct the shot! 
then aimed, but he didn't, firing, touch a hair.' One questioning 
the propriety of this clerical episode, was answered, 'My firing 
was as thoughtless as the shot was harmless, and I was disposed to 
fall back on the New Haven boy, who, a few years after, being 
questioned about fishing in the trout streams, said it was poor, for 



BE3ILNISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 45 

he was down yesterday. " What, Sunday ? " " Yes, but didn't 
stay long," and he cut short my gentle reproof in a boyish rebuff, 
"Guess I didn't break Sunday much, didn't cotch nothing," which 
is akin to my apology. I neither loaded a gun nor killed anything, 
but it was my last appearance in a wolf hunt.'" 

The traditional jug story I learned from original sources given 
in gleeful recollection. On the temperance awakening, when the 
distillery under the hill was a large and prosperous institution, the 
hard drinkers distrusted the strict abstinence of the zealous 
reformers, including the minister. They would "all take it in 
secret behind the door," and to confirm the opinion, one of the 
thirsty doubters met Mr. Hopkins, and espying a brown jug in the 
parson's wagon, himself on the way for a dram, said he would say 
nothing about it, for the best of people would have it in the house 
and most would drink on the sly. The jug was just filled with 
new yeast — " emptings " from the still-house, and there was a sug- 
gestion in a sportive mood, that, as we were under the hill, there 
would be no scandal in taking a drink. The thirsty customer 
fixed his lips for a full, hasty dram, his companion holding up the 
jug at a proper angle, to conceal the contents and insure a full 
delivery on the drawing of the plug, which saturated the person of 
his strangled victim, who found a swift emetic rather than a pleas- 
ing elixir. It was one of those practical severe jokes which few 
could better devise and none more heartily enjoy than the dignified 
doctor, who said the ludicrous treatment of his parishioner and 
patient was salutary, the man never afterward being accused of 
drinking behind the door. 

THE SEMINARY. 

It was the judgment of the Faculty that my knowledge of 
New Testament Greek and of the Hebrew would allow entrance 
into the Junior class. I graduated after two years, resisting the 
opiate of caution and breath of praise by the good, but conservative 
professors. Their kindness was not undervalued, yet the student 
did not adopt the role of policy, ambitious as he was to perform 
public service. With fatherly concern on their part, I Avas told 
that my ideas were too radical for the times ; e. g., it was consid- 
ered wise not to discuss the position of missionaries among the 
Indians, then receiving slaveholders into the church. A cargo of 



46 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

rum might possibly be overlooked, when sent out by those who gave 
liberally to foreign missions. Then the friction between the old 
and new schools I caricatured — the old school holding children 
are sinners when they were born ; the new school, sinners when 
old enough to know how. The professors, Drs. Henry Mills, Bax- 
ter Dickinson and Laurens P. Hickock, were all able men, the 
latter especially became distinguished at Union College and a phi- 
losopher of celebrity ; but there was the voice of Presbytery to be 
heeded, and the old paths only were held as safe and sacred. 

Conservatism and all, this was truly a serviceable school of the 
prophets, located in lovely Auburn, the home of Judges Conkling 
and Blatchford and the then eminent Ex-Gov. Seward, who was 
heard frequently in great cases like the Freeman murder case, 
where his opponent was "Prince" John Van Buren. attorney 
general. 

Its alumni were numerous. Distinguished as associates I 
recall the noble missionaries, F. E. Williams and Charles Little; 
Dr. Henry A. Nelson, professor, theologian and writer; Dr. Henry 
W. Parker, poet, artist, naturalist and professor in Iowa College, 
late author of "The Spirit of Beauty," a volume of the highest 
original and literary character. Prof. Parker wedded Miss Helen 
Fitch, a gifted authoress and the belle of Auburn, tenderly remem- 
bered as long a sufferer from a frightful casualty. Revs. H. A. 
Strong, Job Pierson, Edward Taylor, E. F. Williams and others, 
still honor the pulpit ; while J. H. Kasson, my townsman and 
friend, and Robinson, the devoted and ardent, have passed away in 
varying service not to be forgotten. 

War truly emancipated theological seminaries, as it did politi- 
cians. The vassalage and pulpit circumspection of that day, I set 
out in a scrap found among the old papers — of course, sarcasm. 

Sample sermon skeleton, advisory to the class of 1847. The 
text, "Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves." 

I, What the characteristics of the serpent ? 

(a) Fertile in promises to mother Eve. 

(b) Has eye of a charmer — the bird falls. 

(c) Coils in danger — circumspection, 

(d) Crawls when pursued. 

II. In the symbol of a dove. 

(a) Harmless in flight. 

(b) Gentle in cooing. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 47 

(c) Instinctively in storm takes refuge in a cote. 
Remarks. Gentlemen, advisory to your congregations, say on 
Fast and Thanksgiving days, we 

1. Deprecate the California gold fever. 

2. Denounce fanatical Mormon crusaders. 

3. Execrate the bloody Mexican war. 

4. Commiserate black men — leave slavery to Providence. 

5. Study the symbols of the successful minister — the serpent 
of the earth, the dove of the air. 



Union village, thirty miles north of Albany, was the place of 
my first settlement. It was a village romantic in nature, of attract- 
ive houses, a refined people, of radical, diverse opinions on the 
great issues of slavery and temperance. The Congregational 
church had come out from the Dutch Eeformed, refusing to fel- 
lowship any church tolerating a rumseller or a slaveholder — a pro- 
test only a quarter of a century in advance of Presbyterian and 
Methodist orthodoxy and ethics. It required heroines and born 
cavaliers to stem a tide of flunky ism, a cowardly pulpit and social 
intolerance. 

That church was equal to the occasion in that locality ; erecting 
a fine edifice, and with ample means and high social culture, enlist- 
ing thought, not less than awakening admiration. As a young 
minister I had no high advanced standard to urge; it was rather 
an effort to keep up with the procession on a stern, rugged march, 
entered upon by a noble people in calm resolution. Certainly their 
high social standing and kindly spirit, with the heart of true 
reformers, made them a peculiar people. 

In politics, new issues were met confronting the slave power on 
the election of Gen. Taylor, who, though really a kind-hearted 
man, was the hero of a war severely denounced. 

The liberal party, headed by John P. Hale, received, I think, 
the entire suffrage of the voters in our Society. In the eyes of a 
gross sentiment there was the greatest scandal in the abolition of 
the corner negro pew, yet more so in name than in resulting fact. 
The families keeping house-servants and coachmen, found their 
employes in church, without pressure or command, occupying not a 
corner, but a side of the church; they were so numerous that a 



48 BEMINISCENCEti OF FOETY YEARS. 

colorphobist asked the usher on entering to do him a favor by giv- 
ing him a seat not "on the shady side of the house." The name 
of Negro church was a by-word, but there was only a toleration of 
a class in worship as ready as that of the nurse or the drivers on 
duty, and defended without an idea of the social quality as degrad- 
ing; it was a salutary, kind effort to uplift a class, yet wearing the 
badges of the slavery of their fathers ; in a word, a Christian rec- 
ognition of the oneness of the race. 

I give an incident. Rev. Mr. Fillmore, of Cambridge, a popu- 
lar jmstor, a relative of the then President Fillmore, pi-oposed an 
exchange. On the way, accosted by a parishioner, he was asked 
as to his mission. " Going to exchange with Grinnell, to preach to 
nabobs and niggers" — a hyperbole at least — it was in no sense 
true. The audience was not of nabobs, but of cultured people, 
tolerating a class to whom the low designation of "nigger" was 
never applied. The families could afford to be singular, equally 
with the affluent Quakers in plain colors far out of fashion. Still, 
in a "one idea" they found no cardinal virtue or excuse for minor 
neglects. The first ladies sang in the choir. The rich man's 
daughter played at the organ — thus music. Sabbath-school, tem- 
perance and reform, filled the church, and there were added to its 
numbers on one day near half a hundred by profession. 

The monthly concerts for missions drew Quakers, skeptics, and 
the late witty E. D. Culver, member of Congress, all bearing a free 
lance. The warfare against the saloon was only less than against 
slavery, seemingly more effective. Reform men, the wood-sawyer, 
the Mohawk Dutchman, aided in keeping back license for a time, 
and liberal citizens erected a temperance hotel, only to lose its 
peculiar standing after a few years. As to the tipplers, I recall 
two ludicrous incidents. 

McDonald was a reformed Irishman, but on the death of a 
daughter fell into grief, and I made a special effort to keep him 
sober to attend the funeral. At the cemetery what was my sur- 
prise when he stepped out in front of the company to speak, and 
this was his bull which afterward stung his proud spirit, and led 
to a permanent reform : " Friends, I thank you for your presence, 
and for burying my dear child, and hope the time is not far distant 
when I can in like service return your kindness." 

Another inebriate was brought to reform — a kind of a pill doc- 
tor — by a laughable experience. Coming home late at night, 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 49 

hungry aud thirsty, he called to his wife up-stairs, for milk and a 
bowl of blueberries. Their location in the pantry was pointed out, 
only a dim moon shining. During his absence she had made a 
batch of pills, and had left them near the berries. Presently he 
called, in the midst of profanity, ''Are there none fresher than 
these?" — they had made him sick. Horrors! horrors! and the 
reply, as she took in the situation, was, that instead of the berries 
he had taken the bulk of those pills. The ridicule which followed 
the maudlin episode ended the career of a medical practitioner, 
and caused his reform. 

Time has not dimmed my recollection nor lessened my admira- 
tion for the heroism of that congregation, as I recall Dr. Corliss, 
the Moreys, Holmes, Masters, Gibbs, Bigelows and others, for all 
of whom save one, epitaphs have been written, 

I mention President Arthur, whose personal opinions he gave 
me at the White House, " I lived in Union Village at the found- 
ing of that church, George H. Corliss, the son of Dr. Corliss, was 
my playmate, now the great mechanic decorated by the kings of 
Europe. Not long ago I told him, sitting in that chair, that he 
would be remembered and his name mentioned long after some on 
the Presidential roll." Then added, "Young William Holmes had 
ten chances to one of mine for a rise in the world. He had fine 
dress suits, carriages and horses at command, and I was only the 
son of a poor Baptist minister." Knowing that Holmes lived in 
reduced circumstances at Grinnell, my Iowa home, he invited him 
to visit the White House. Learning of the family he rang his bell, 
asked by a note that the youngest son should have an appointment 
by the Postmaster General to the next railroad mail vacancy, 
which was soon filled by Mr. Frank S. Holmes. In further evi- 
dence of a statesman who never forgot his friends, is the fact that 
his high station did not prevent, on the death of Mr. Holmes, a 
telegraphic message of sympathy to the family. 

My stay with this people was a pleasant one, with a full house 
and the church doubling in members. On most fair Sundays I 
spoke three times a day — the afternoon in the country. A con- 
viction came that a change would inure to the benefit of both par- 
ties, though I did not seek invitations, for they were at hand. 
Was there a divinity shaping the future, bringing burdens and the 
sad separation of friends ? My mother, for a long time in feeble 
health, was at Union Village treated with the kindest attention. 



50 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

She died at the old home, sundering the link keeping me from the 
West, which had bound me nearer home, to witness at the bedside 
wasting and death. 

The following letter is expressive of a mother's loss : 

Mother is dead! Yesterday I replied to an inquiry, "She yet lingers," and 
this is the first time I write the mournful sentence — a truth I could not speak. 
From friends I have often heard the expression, " My mother is not living," but I 
little understood that loss as I now do, which stirs the soul to the depths of feeling, 
and is the occasion of extreme pain. We are called but once to suffer it during 
the longest life, and it is a loss for which no earthly blessing can give return. 

A suffering mother was mine. For a period of years she had not known an 
hour free from pain, still she uttered not a murmur. Her mood was cheerfulness, 
and all her years of wasting furnished lessons of patience. There was pain in the 
thought that the kindness of friends could not be requited, and when the lips could 
not utter the words the heart indited, often her fast falling tears were the only 
expressions of gratitude. 

A widowed mother. When a child twenty years agone, my father passed away, 
commending us all to the God of the widow and the Father of the fatherless. Now 
I recall the lonely sigh, and her careworn, saddened look has a new impression 
after many years, and her devotion to us is explained. She lived in us and for us. 
The youngest of our little circle, so full of promise, passed away ; the eldest, far 
from home among strangers, was cut down in manhood ; yet the fountains of her 
heart had not been so dried up, or exhausted, that at the mention of father, they 
did not flow. Oh! holy as heaven is the widowed mother's love. 

" The love of many prayers and many tears. 
Which changes not with dim declining years." 

So she was endeared to us until her last breath. 

She lived and died a Christian mother. Christ was the anchor of her soul ; 
heaven she looked forward to as her home, and the voice of duty was heard as the 
voice of God. May those prayers and counsels meant for us that we might be use- 
ful, never be forgotten. May her expression this morning, "a blessed Sabbath," 
and her last words, " Christ is precious," be linked with her memory and magical 
words, until we have crossed the melancholy flood. 



CHAPTEK IV. 

Washington Society — Its Intolerance — The new Congregational 
Church — A Liberal Club- — Distiyiguished Reformers — Dr. 
Baileifs National Era — Radical Legislators. 

President Zachary Taylor died in Washington on the 9th 
day of July, 1850, much lamented for his sterling honesty, though 
taken up as a candidate on the score of availability. I attended 
his funeral, although too ill to see little more than the formality 
of an official pageantry so common at State burials ; and the old 
horse, a gray charger of the Mexican war, following in the rear, 
seemed about all the cortege, brute or man, in becoming solemnity. 
It was very offensive to my taste that the cavalry and flying artil- 
lery returned from the burial with the quick motion of a retreat, 
and that before sunset the artillery " played war " on the mall in 
front of the White House, clad in mourning for the death of the 
President. 

The Washington then and of to-day, how unlike ! Impure 
water, muddy roads, squalor which sat in poverty, and the Avenue 
in a general dilapidation, and as if the angels of destruction had 
come to hover over the 40,000 j)eople, ignorant, and massed as 
servitors of officials, at the National Capital. The place, however 
beautiful in nature, required the removal of the curse of slavery, 
and an infusion of new blood and capital, to make the city of 
to-day attractive to its 200,000 residents. 

On my second street walk I saw a family in chains, coming 
over from the Island slave-pens, where it was said there had been 
an auction-block sale of humanity. My blood boiled, and I did not 
suppress indignant speech, while the Northern clerks whom I met 
said, <' Talk low, you will get us all into trouble." All seemed to 
be dumb in the shadow of the great outrages. There was an open 
alliance of politicians and the Church, to keep still, little less 
shameful than the league to uphold slavery itself. A free pulpit 
— there was none, and the only light which gave me hope was 



52 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

from Dr. Bailey's National Era, and the social gatherings in his 
parlors, with the possibility of a Church not chained to the dead 
corpse, too offensive for concealment, corrupting the very air. 
Slavery struck with paralysis the otherwise manly spirits, by its 
subtle exactions and divisive plots. 

A CHURCH. 

Humanity found no voice in the sanctuaries, nor was there a 
free platform for religious protest against the open barter and pub- 
lic sale of men. It was no caricature that our fustian flag 



' In splendid mockery waves 
O'er a land of slaves." 



Messrs. Bigelow, Prentice, Stevens and others advised me that 
old Trinity Church on Judiciary Square was to be sold when vaca- 
ted by the Episcopalians for their new one. It Avas their opinion 
that the Catholics would be sure of the edifice, certain that the 
trustees would not incur odium by making a sale to radicals like 
Dr. Bailey. It was not long before quietly I had a contract for 
the purchase of the edifice, paying a small sum down to keep an 
option for a few months. Property was very low, and the price 
was seven thousand, five hundred dollars, now worth many times 
that sum. In the effecting of a purchase my plan was to sell the 
pews in the North, and I recall that Henry C. Bowen (of Bowen & 
McNamee, then the silk merchants, with national distinction of 
having goods for sale and not principles), now proprietor of the 
New York Independent, took the first pew, for which he paid a 
hundred dollars. Supported in the enterprise by the commendar 
tion of Mr. Beecher, Dr. Storrs, Dr. Bushnell and others, I secured 
about five thousand dollars, which was paid of the purchase money, 
and we took possession of the church in November, 1851. 

My sermon on the occasion was printed at the request of the 
members of the congregation, and, of the listeners on that day, I 
recall in the congregation. Senators Chase, Hale, Durkee, and Rep- 
resentatives Tuck, of New Hampshire, Fowler and Dickinson, of 
Massachusetts, Root, Giddings and Townsend, of Ohio, with the 
ever present Dr. Bailey, ready then, as afterward, to face political 
and social ostracism. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 53 

The air at that day was filled with the poisonous, miasmatic 
breath of slavery, and the friends of our church holding office 
were truly imperiling the bread of their families in the presence 
of hirelings and spies. Caste in India, or the hate of bigots in 
Mexico for Protestants, was only less vengeful than that of the 
respectables of Washington. Mobs had only just been dispersed, 
thirsting for blood. Fillmore, the President by succession, was 
timid and chained to the conservative car, while the escaping of 
slaves led a free Church to be regarded as a menace, with all the 
horrid apparitions of a nightmare. The surface of society was 
truly all placid, but like sea gulls whose gyrations presage a 
storm, there were ominous crowds on the corners and in dram 
shops, with no seeming employment but that of lackeys, too lazy 
for work, too timid for crime, and only when maudlin with drink 
and provoked with rage, were in their true role the tools of slav- 
ery. Their language was gross, and their oaths loud against negro 
equality, and judging by their invectives they would have drank 
vile whisky from human skulls as a pastime. I regret to say those 
denounced as Jesuits were not so venomous as Protestants ; even 
clergymen, whose standing depended upon "Court favor," when 
they learned that members were to leave their church for the Con- 
gregational, brought nothing of fraternity, rather hovered and 
watched like birds of evil omen waiting for their prey. Pinesse 
more becoming a ward caucus than the fraternity of churches 
measured the pulse and purpose. A few were not lost to shame in 
the all abounding recreancy. 

From the sermon in the church, November 25, 1851, the fol- 
lowing excerpts are historic as to the occasion : 

The establishment of a Congregational church in this city, as a new denomin- 
ation, requires no apology; but a brief explanation may be proper, for the sake of 
those who may be ignorant of our motives and designs. 

No efforts are intended in depreciating those Christians who have here set up 
their banners. All truth is not found in one polity or creed; nor is perfection 
claimed for any Protestant form of worship. The earnest Christian has not the 
time to give in criticism of educational preferences, natural affinities, and the non- 
essentials which separate, in name, the great Protestant family; and it is rather 
becoming the zealous to "provoke to good works," still cultivating the unity of 
spirit and the bond of peace. The field is wide, a largo portion of it being unculti- 
vated — and a sinrit of rivalry or words of railing would work only evil, while 
thousands about us must soon know the truth as it is in Jesus, if at all. The intro- 
duction of a foreign grain of a new name, by the husbandman, is not a signal for 
decrying all others, indigenous to the soil, which have brought " seed to the sower 
and bread to the eater " ; nor does it become one branch of our Father's great fam- 



54 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

ily to depreciate their brethren by endeavors to prove themselves more worthy of 
peculiar consideration and divine favor. This new standard is set up for far differ- 
ent purposes. 

The best methods should be chosen for the defense of the truth and the salvation 
of men. 

There is a choice in the ways discovered in reaching our distant El Dorado, 
there being a route by the cape, by the isthmus and overland. Marked changes 
have taken place in the modes of warfare in bloody and national disputes, by a 
substitution of science, flying artillery and fleets, for the cross-bow and trial by 
single combat, and the pen for the sword in diplomacy. Ever giving to God's 
methods — especially the foolishness of preaching, and the sovereignty of the 
Spirit, their jJlace, we are not to forget that proper means, and not miracles, are 
employed for the defense of truth and the attainment of certain ends. They who 
are the teachers of ethics, and are set for the defense of the Gospel, should have in 
mind that we live in a time of conflicting sentiments — in an age of great freedom 
of opinion, and that the abuse of an errorist is not an answer to his argument. 
Errors are multiform, and a change of tactics in dealing with infidelity, to meet its 
new phases, becomes necessary, except to those denials to which God has furnished 
stereotyped answers. We are pointed to men who would overthrow the church, be- 
cause across their i^athway, and supposed in their power. To such we must dem- 
onstrate its worth to them and their children, and revive its ancient spirit when 
known as on the Rock, sending forth its light high in the heavens, and its savor 
through the earth. To the mass, the age is utilitarian — fruitbearing ; and in 
showing to gainsayers what God's truth is, in its all-comprehensiveness and virtue, 
marked simplicity, cheerfulness and practical deeds, which will reach men in their 
immediate wants, will become more effective than simple forms of worship, or pro- 
fessions of orthodoxy. 

This immediate field is wide, and promises richly to repay cultivation. We 
are placed iu the center of controlling social and political influences, meeting on 
every street the servants of the people, who here assemble to frame the laws, which 
bind together this republic of states. This city has emerged from obscurity, becom- 
ing populous and beautiful, the very name of which should stimulate you to make 
it what the Father of his Country would desire, were he permitted to communicate 
a wish from that home to which he has gone. 

You appear, not as innovators, either in church polity, or with peculiar theol- 
ogy, on this soil, held in common by all the states. The state has adopted the 
republicanism of our church, the germ of which was brought to the new world in 
the Mayflower two hundred years agone. Your theologj^, with its cognate jirinci- 
ples and spirit, was never more welcome to the scholar and Christian — never more 
diffusive than now; not bounded by state lines, it marches with the "Star of 
Empire," on, and beyond the " Father of waters," where the Oregon sweeps by, to 
find a local habitation and a name in the land of gold, where the Pacific laves the 
shore. 

Our common heritage is the theology of those divines whose works are read 
approvingly by the Christians of many nations. We have treasures in the memory 
of Elliot and Brainerd, the eminent apostles to the Indians — joy to know that 
Beecher and Hewitt, the early champions of temperance, are of us ; and we take 
pleasure in our Christian relationship to those in our country who first engaged in 
the work of home and foreign missions ; who have given system and efficiency to 
Sabbath-schools, and bible and tract circulation. All about us there are those 
who lend their sympathies, and ■vvill join us in labors. Be joyous, then, my breth- 
ren, to-day, because the pilgrim spirit has not fled, but walks in noon's broad light: 
labor and pray that it may abide and burn even here — 



EEMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 55 

" Till the waves of the bay where the Mayflower lay, 
Shall foam and freeze no more." 

There is much of labor before us ; and however feeble our beginnings may be, if 
we go to God for counsel and for strength, we shall learn that with Him there is 
no restraint " to save by many or by few." If a prophet of evil and a foe say, " If 
the foxes but run upon these walls, they will fall down," heed it not, for the words 
to his chm-ch are, "I have graven thee upon my hands — thy walls are continually 
before me! " With a worm He can "thrash the mountains and beat them small, 
and make the hills as chaff." Oh, then, go to Him when doubting and weary, and 
He will be a counsellor, and sinew you with the strength of a wrestling Angel. 
He will here raise up a people in sjTnpathy with all that is good — a cliurch wliich 
sliall be with her children in the divine economy of preparation — a quarry for the 
chiselling of marble — a forest for the felling of cedars, to be borne hence by the 
Master Biulder, and have a place in that temple going up in the heavens. 

This leads to personality. The new church for freedom had 
not been offensive, but the occupant of the pulpit was "shaded," 
and finally charged with giving a young mulatto couple a lesson in 
astronomy, especially the location of the North star. I think a 
trap had been set for me by visitors at Gilbert's, where I boarded. 
It became a serious charge. I could not prove a negative, and 
with my enemies perjury was nothing. My throat gave signs of 
failing me, and there was a good excuse for a Northern trip; 
besides, I had a pleasing early matrimonial prospect which I did 
not desire to have clouded by violence, or by the lips of base 
informers. 

I left Washington, but with the mockery of a good-by from 
so-called gentlemen accompanying me to the cars, whom I advised 
that they would "see me later" — as they did from the gallery at 
the Capitol, when I gave the vote to confiscate the property of one 
of them with that of others, for disloyalty. I looked them boldly 
in the eye, having found poetic satisfaction at least, waiting on the 
true verdict in time's just awards. 

The church kept on its way until a council for the settlement 
of a candidate not very acceptable, and with Prof. Stowe as mod- 
erator, was called early in 1854. It was the largest of the kind 
ever convened in this country. Dr. Edward Beecher was the main 
questioner. Was there ever a candidate (whose name I withhold) 
placed under the eye of hyper D. D.'s in such a theological pil- 
lory ? He was bold in assurance, but not very orthodox. Henry 
Ward Beecher preached a sermon to a great crowd, even Senator 
Sumner standing, and, by a special invitation of Mrs. President 
Pierce, Mr. Beecher was privately called to console on the death of 



56 BEMINISCENCEIS OF FORTY YEARS. 

her son. The President, one of the most urbane of gentlemen, 
received all the council with great cordiality. 

The church, later, recovered from the wounds their chosen pas- 
tor had received, in deprecation and fear of his loose theology, 
and he left. Varied measures and expedients, with results it does 
not become me to criticise or recount, were taken. War brought a 
new element to Washington, and the pestilential breath of slavery 
ceased to enfeeble moral purpose and to invite social ostracism. 
Dr. Boyington became chaplain to Congress — a preacher of cour- 
age and ability — and there arose new friends, like Gen. 0. O. 
Howard, whose name is a synonym for a hero and Christian, and 
Senator Pomeroy, of Kansas, domiciled in Washington, who 
became pillars in the new and model edifice, where one of the larg- 
est of our societies holds its place, rising in troubled days of the 
new epoch; from it vigorous colonies go to organize in the new 
portions of the city and vicinage. The death of slavery was truly 
the life of the Congregational church, free and aggressive, and the 
new Washington. 

WASHINGTON CHARACTERS AND LIFE DR. BAILEY. 

Dr. Gamaliel Bailey may be little known by this generation, 
for I am not aware that he has a biography, yet his career fur- 
nishes choice materials. No man of his time gave truth a more 
hospitable welcome, nor were there any less disturbed by tempo- 
rary failures and threats. 

Into the Ohio river his press was thrown three times, and a 
bonfire made of his paper list. Por him assassins lay in wait, sure 
to gain the praises of the "Union saviors" on the border. His first 
years in Washington, publishing the Era, were perilous to property 
and person, and as late as 1848, his ofiice Avas for three days in a 
state of siege by a mob that swore in the singular and plural that 
they would neither eat nor drink until the quiet-disturber was 
slain. The intrepid and yet mild defender looked out upon the 
crowd (with their murderous intent) unblanched by fear, to gain, 
when the peril was over, the regard of gentlemen who were ready 
secretly to promote the continuation of the National Era. Aban- 
doned as a losing concern by its projectors. Dr. Bailey personally 
launched the craft freighted with precious principles, never left to 
chance by an accomplished pilot with genius to devise and courage 
to command. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 57 

I recall his philosophy as but a story of yesterday. The cause 
wants an elevated plane where the sordid will find no company, 
and great truths and association with literature, and even 
romance; to one great idea alone the masses are not won except 
by shame, or the hope of early and easy redress. 

From the wrongs of black men you could turn to columns of 
bright reviews of books, letters unique from cities, and charming 
views of Washington society, all culminating in the good fortune 
of the manuscript of Harriet Beecher Stowe and the immortal 
''Uncle Tom's Cabin," later circulated by Jewett, of Boston, and 
others by the hundred thousand, and reprinted in many languages. 
Sumner's "White slavery in the Barbary States," Hildreth's 
"White slave," and the best ideas of jurists and reformers had 
better than waste-basket fortune ; noted and praised as only an 
advance to the future camping ground of all moral heroes. Judge 
William Jay was never so well known as a worthy son of the great 
Chief Justice, John Jay. The Quaker poet, Whittier, for two 
years was a special contributor, and his verse was never before set 
in so elegant a frame as by the National Era, and candidates for 
literary honors found it worthy a generous patron. 

Then, in 1850, the philosopher of reform opened his elegant 
parlors to counteract the social ostracism of Washington, which, 
though coarse in show, was relentless as the grave, backed by 
the hundreds of millions investment in human chattels. A man 
with an idea, if not a boor or a bore, knew where he could find an 
introduction to a company, after ha,ving seen the editor of the 
Era. Such worthy peculiar gatherings of people may have never 
been seen before. Will they ever be again, where such great 
schemes were voiced and national actors were seen, the ultra Gods 
of the time, in promenade, and sipping creams with common 
mortals ? 

It is quite safe to speak of those who have passed away. 
There was Miss Matilda Miner, advertised by a Congressman as a 
"doubtful lady coming to the city ostensibly to teach darkies, but 
really to aid in stealing niggers." What was the next sensation? 
The lady had hired a school-room next to the congressman, who 
had in vain offered hundreds of dollars for the lease. That was 
finesse and a fact exciting ; even a mile-stone set up by the way, 
by a woman in strategy — the peer of Brooks, the Congressman 
and editor from New York. 



58 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

Cheap postage had long been like the red flag planted before 
slaveholders, who made reading by servants a crime, and Barnabas 
Bates, of New York, once acting postmaster of that city, con- 
densed his figures and philosophy as another startling force in the 
parlors, where that most able writer and reformer, Eev. Joshua 
Leavitt, had found a hearty welcome as a postage reformer — 
equipped later as the editor of the New York Indejoendent — a 
statesman also. Who is the brusque, broad, solid millionaire, gray 
with the crown of sixty years? It is Asa Whitney, of New 
York, the first and bold projector of a railway to the Pacific coast. 
How firm he stands, and with eye lit up in optimistic glow, fore- 
casting the day when gold shall be mined at less then half its cost. 
Disunion was averted, and the Pacific Eailroad became more than 
a Golden gate to the west, a road for ships freighted for the Indies. 

He won his case in the Bailey parlor forum, but that year of 
Congress under Southern rule was dull, and the rivalry as to the 
eastern terminus was bitter. Col. Benton was then an advocate of 
the Smoky Hill Kansas route, which he asserted was indicated by 
the track of the Indian, and still plainer by the animal instincts of 
the buffalo. Though more than ten years elapsed and Southern 
chairs required to be vacated before the work began, yet Whitney 
was the able, bold projector of the great work of the century. 

THOMAS H. BENTON, 

the author of the "Thirty Years in the United States Senate," was 
one of your broad-chested, robust men of mark, best recalled and 
delineated in personality when expunging the Senate Jackson- 
resolutions of censure. "Solitary and alone I set this ball in 
motion." 

I heard him on the Compromise Measures in 1850, especially in 
opposition to the propositions championed by Senator Foote, of 
Mississippi. His speech was slow, words measured, argument 
elevated, and fortified with historical allusions and figures in com- 
bative array. "You cannot," said he, "by quackery stanch these 
bleeding wounds. Here I throttle the device as I hold up the 
measures, and crush them, as I mutilate the paper in my hand 
which prints this delusion." The ambitious factions displaced 
him from the Senate on the grounds that he lived in Washington, 
was not a hearty slavery propagandist — not even a moderate fire- 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 59 

eater; but St. Louis sent him to the House of Eepresentatives a 
term, in rebuke to the state where his counsel was coveted; the 
Pacific railway was brought into great prominence, and objections 
were met with the power and skill of an adroit debater. 

In 1853 I called at his residence in St. Louis, a very plain, low 
brick house, its walls decorated with maps and geographical lines, 
the promise of the future railway to the Pacific, then an absorbing 
public topic. "The route," said he, "was made before the com- 
pass, and the line is traced by the buffalo so plain that modern 
engineering has little to do, save in details." "Every dollar," 
said the statesman, " taken from the mines has cost two, and rail- 
way transit will save half in mining, building Orient and Occident, 
and millions in taking care of Indians." 

On the slavery question he remarked, " Missouri once, I urged, 
could afford to be taxed to pay for every slave, and then make 
money by the increased value of lands," which he pictured as rich 
in soil, and richer in coal, lead and iron, " I am a nominal slave 
owner, but can only say, not in pride, that I am not the first 
man whose practice and theories were divergent." 

There was a suggestion and a hope that he might be a national 
candidate. No, the fire-eaters are exacting, and the North can 
furnish candidates with principles equal to the requirements of 
conventions. "The Old Eoman" he was called — clouded in repu- 
tation by the duel, but courageous and defiant when he opened his 
vest in the Senate Chamber, and said to the pugnacious, noisy 
Foote, " Shoot, shoot ! " 

Clay and Webster, his compeers, whom I saw, were every way 
unlike the opinionated Missourian, who did not conceal his vanity 
on my praising a Senatorial speech against "Hangman Foote," and 
on Compromise. He was a fearless and a bitter opponent, but 
truly kind of heart, saying of his old enemy, Calhoun, wasting on 
life's verge, "When God lays his hands on a man I take mine off." 
He sleeps well. 

David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, had just reached fame by a 
proviso restricting slavery in the Territories. When in Congress, 
I was asked to introduce strangers to him. He was a short, rotund 
person, with a round head, and bore himself as a lion on many 
occasions, with dignity, as the author of a most radical proviso, 
rescuing a not over brilliant statesman from the oblivion of 
mediocrity. 



60 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

Preston King, of New York, afterward Senator, flabby in face, 
obese, and more than aldermanic in form, was for the liberal issue 
too early removed, having, while a government officer, drowned 
himself in the bay of New York. 

George W. Julien, of Indiana, Representative, John P. Hale, 
Senator from New Hampshire, with Charles Francis Adams, of 
Massachusetts, were a trio of note, once candidates for the Presi- 
dency and Vice-Presidency. 

Julien Avas a Quaker, save as to hat and soft speech — verbal 
excoriation of a dough-face was to him a fine art — but in the par- 
lor he was a dry story-teller ; a Greeley liberal of 1872, when he 
lost his place in the Eepublican procession by the hate of land 
sharks, whom he sought to punish as a Democratic land office in 
New Mexico. An old warrior, vexed by rivals and silver-gray pol- 
iticians in long and turbulent career. 

Mr. Adams was of the family type — not ^unlike his father, 
with short, fair, small features, delicate and refined in expression, 
the son's features true to a royal line, yet cool in blood, his con- 
servatism not diminished by wealth and sharp political friction. 
Charles Francis and all the Adamses of rank have eulogists, and 
Dr. Bailey, in whose house he Avas a guest, was often called "an 
Adams," as he was in refinement and subdued speech. 

John P. Hale, Senator from New Hampshire, with so hearty 
and ominous a smile that you were impatient for a scintillation of 
wit in the Senate Chamber, more feared than the logic of debate 
by his foes, was the character of chief interest to the gallery vis- 
itor. Speaking for the country, he imparted courage- — even 
audacity of speech to time-servers, and alone he stands of the 
Spartan Senatorial band who could never give a second reply on a 
question of political ethics. 

Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, joined in the merry circle, happy in 
relaxation. In form he was a model man, crowned by a Webste- 
rian brow. As a speaker he Avas sIoav and logical, and, Avitli a 
husky, ill-toned voice, poorly enforced the strong Saxon which 
gave the argument of the case unembellished. An honest, ambi- 
tious, lucky politician in his designation ; Avorthy of the place as 
Minister of Finance, and Chief Justice, though soured on failing 
to reach the Presidency, to Avhich I know he actively aspired. If 
the Senator Avas the victim of imposition, let it be charged to fear 
of injustice to a friend, and not to mercenary motives or political 



REIflNISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 61 

aspirations. Years after, just seated in the chair of Secretary of 
the Treasury, on my call, and expression of cheer and good wishes, 
Mr. Chase replied, ''It is the last place I should have accepted — 
one of details and denials for which I have little aptitude." I 
named to him Dr. Bailey, deceased, and his family, whereupon he 
sent a messenger, who secured for his son the first official favor, 
and it was consonant with a generous spirit that was refreshed on 
my praise of the Era and its editor. 

Other notables like Horace Mann, Seward, Giddings, and their 
class, have found biographers in warm and just praise. 

Ladies were welcome. The Misses Carey, risen to fame, Mrs. 
Southworth, one of the most prolific of novelists, the author of a 
half hundred volumns, and still vigorous, though past seventy 
years of age, and the dark-eyed, pensive Grace Greenwood, Mrs. 
Lippincott (who has never been so far out of sight or thought as 
now in a Colorado home), pleasantly lured their sex into the cir- 
cle of the social plans of the time. 

What of the frolics ? In the old games of youth the bow was 
unbent, and a chance Southerner was left to wonder how, with the 
only stimulus of coffee, there could be such cheer. It was spon- 
taneity without formality, and a social protest against reigning 
shams at slavery's capital. There were promenade trips to music, 
ballads, with a grand finale in a game of blind man's buff, entered 
into with special zest by the veterans of propriety. Horace Mann 
is blinded, and less adept at identifying his captive lady than in 
tracing a word to a Saxon root. Then Giddings or Senator Hale. 
The occasion was both boisterous and ludicrous, in the ruffle of 
silks, and the sallies of wit. Young life was recalled, when, by a 
trip, the venerable Giddings and Grace Greenwood, by a collision, 
fell to the carpet, making a tableau which nearly forty years can 
not efface. 

This was the plotting, and here was the heart and policy of the 
great editor, Bailey, who kept in the line of England's great lady 
of rank, pleading with cold-blooded lords for an emancipation vote. 

Garrison was just emerging from a garret, unmerchantable eggs 
were in less demand, and the great cause, escaping obloquy, gained 
a new status by the gifted pen and parlor assemblies of one who 
fell, alas ! too early, breaking the chains of the bondmen by peace- 
ful means, in preparation for the fateful lightnings of Avar, fol- 
lowed by the emancipation pen of Lincoln. 



62 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

THE FORUM OP DEBATE. 

Past discussions tip to 1850 and 1851 seemed tame compared 
to those on tlie compromises reported for the staunching of politi- 
cal wounds. I took in from the galleries the groups forming an 
epoch in our history, and made notes which I do not care to revise, 
only elaborate. Webster was under a cloud by his 7th of March 
speech. Henry Clay spoke his last words with tearful emotion, to 
which I listened. J. C. Calhoun, long the praised logician, and 
oracle of secession, had a successor in Mr. Rhett, a politician of 
another type, really a Jacobin inviting a bloody conflict. • 

Senator Butler, a man of emotion, great in stature, powerful in 
declamation and a cultivated, classic orator, was moved to tears on 
the mention of the name of his dead colleague. He was nursing 
his hate for the Union and seemingly happy over any ill-timed 
remarks by a Senator or the Press, on which he could emphasize 
his secret enmity to the North, culminating in open disunion. 

" Hangman Foote," of Mississippi, had descended as an extrem- 
ist to become a compromiser. ISTo man had so pompous a bearing, 
wearing the plumes of the orator at the laying of the corner-stone 
of the Washington monument ; dodging from seat to seat, fertile 
in injective, exasperating speech. He earned my contempt by car- 
rying a pistol and drawing it on Senator Benton (known to be 
unarmed) in the Chamber, like a gaffled fowl in a cock-pit waiting 
provocation. He was entitled to expulsion, but Benton showed 
the hero when, refusing to give bonds on the requirement of Mr. 
Clay to keep the peace, he said, ''No! he would rot in jail first." 
Then there was a hack driver, the picture of the " hangman Sena- 
tor," save a little darker, following the slave status of the mother, 
an unquestioned Foote, they having one father. It was rumored, 
on Col. Benton's ridicule of Foote's "abhorrence of negroes" as 
being a recent family aversion, there was a threat of revenge, to 
heal wounded honor. It would have been gained only by assassin- 
ation, for Col. Benton had fought his last duel. 

.JEFFERSON DAVIS 

I studied, as one coveting the mantle of the dead Calhoun — an 
ornament he was not born to wear with a military West Point air 
rather than as a votary of the classics. Davis ran away with the 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 63 

favorite daughter of President Zachary Taylor, and the ambition 
to run ahead of somebody was a charitable conjecture in regard 
to the Senator. A very sharj) nose, high cheek bones, compressed 
lips, haughty mien, and measured words in defiance, gave a picture 
of the man ten years before the act of open perjury, and at the 
head of a great rebellion. His speeches were as juiceless as his 
Presidential messages, and colder than his affection for his com- 
rades in the war. For some word from a radical like Hale or 
Chase, there was a morbid impulse, on which he might hang a 
threat or hurl an invective. He seemed envious of Senator Soule, 
of Louisiana, dark as a Creole, a really eloquent fire-eater. Davis 
would make quick step out of the Chamber when Benton, "Old 
Bullion," spoke like a patriot. 

Senator J. M. Mason, of Virginia, was a pompous example of 
F. F. v., seeming to pass radicals in scorn — whom he was too dull 
to answer. 1 had a chance to meet him after John Brown's raid 
in Virginia, and gained a low opinion of his honor as a man, and 
of a courage that imbibed bourbon to match his Bourbon politics 
as a slave breeder. 

Slidell, his confederate from Louisiana in escape, who came 
near bringing us into a collision with England, was a solid man, 
and proved his high order of legal ability by gaining a great law 
practice in Europe, after a world-wide advertisement by reason of 
his capture on the British steamer "Trent," and release from Fort 
Warren on an interpretation of law quite humiliating to the patri- 
otic masses, yet saving a rupture with Great Britain. 

Around these kindred spirits seem to revolve like satellites 
great talkers who were only of service on roll-call. The conserva- 
tive Democratic aspirants for the Presidency became a study, not 
the least ambitious of whom was Senator Houston, of Texas, the 
hero of San Jacinto, with truly a romantic career at home, in the 
camp of the savage, and as Governor of Texas. The window pic- 
tures of a tall, long, plain face were not caricatures. The leopard- 
skin vest was a reality, sported as the trophy of a Nimrod, and his 
occupation was to sit, with head bent without dignity, in seeming 
reflection, whittling pine sticks, when not listening to personali- 
ties, or discussions in which he was to take a part. I never saw 
him at his desk reading or writing like his fellows. 

Gen. Houston was under the ban of Southern opinion, and 
passed from sight as a Presidential candidate. Not so with Gen. 



64 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

Lewis Cass, and Senator Stephen A. Douglas. They sat opposite, 
and each watched the other's movements with more interest than 
rival bidders at a great auction sale. Cass was defeated in 1848, 
but hope sprang anew for 1852, before the entry of Pierce, the 
dark horse. 

The general wore a Avig which did not conceal his age, was 
obese, wheezy and rapid in speech ; resting in the halo of a sol- 
dier of the Avar of 1812, who broke his sword across his knee on 
the surrender of Gen. Hull. A pioneer in Detroit he had become 
rich in lands, but was distrusted by the party slate-makers for hon- 
esty, and not strong with the "bohoys." 

Wine at dinner was then a common beverage at the St. Charles 
Hotel, where I saw Gen. Cass send down for the undrained bottle, 
when his admirers no doubt would have been delighted with a 
taste in compliment rather than the illusory mild aroma. I 
remarked, " He will never be President," not on account of his bev- 
erage, rather because he did not pass it around. Had it been 
Douglas, stranger and friend would have touched their glasses 
until many brands had been tried, regardless of costly corkage, and 
the clinking had become both feeble and monotonous. Both aspir- 
ants had opposed the Wilmot proviso, and approved the main feat- 
ures of the odious Fugitive Slave Law. Gen. Cass in society was 
urbane and truly American, and to him I was drawn for his bold 
speech on the reception of Kossuth, personally regretting the elec- 
tion of the " dark horse " candidate Pierce in 1852. 

Stephen A. Douglas was quite another character, a Vermont 
boy and an Illinois school-master, Avithout the glamour of a mili- 
tary career, like his rival. The world knows of the great debate 
with Lincoln, and that he went down before the treachery of the 
South, to Avhose interests he had been loyal, if not subservient. 

The author of " Squatter Sovereignty " was supreme in sociabil- 
ity, fertile in expedients, eloquent and fervid in discussions, and 
aptly mentioned by Mr. Blaine as one of the three Parliamentary 
leaders in our history. Was he not the generous rival Avho held, 
as I saw him, the hat of Lincoln at the inauguration ? Did not 
his endowment of Douglas University in Chicago with land, by 
the dashings of the lake where he loved to linger, and with money 
for its maintenance, raise him to the fraternity of scholars ? That 
failure which has passed these gifts, which are a monument to his 
generosity, over to the mortgagees, is only another evidence of 



BEMINISCENCES OF FOIITY YEARS. 65 

imprudence or a betrayal of trusts, yet in no sense a disparage- 
ment of the giver, who was a liberal friend of higher education. 

His speech for the Union on the firing on Fort Sumpter broke 
the last link which had bound him to the car of ultraists, and 
stamped his sovereignty doctrines as only the dragon's teeth from 
which sprang John Brown, armed men, and the Border Avar. 

That he was a national idol tliis incident will be in proof. 
When on his sick bed at the Tremont House, in Chicago, then 
being brought up to a new grade by the aid of swarms of men, a 
burly laborer came to the superintendent asking for a day's lay-off. 
"No! I want more men. What is your trouble?" The brave 
man wept silently, and said, " Sir, how can I work below when my 
great friend is up there dying?" It was then and there that 
Douglas died with a patriotic prayer for the success of our arms. 
And his words of counsel were more effective for the Union than 
the service of a general in the field; he was perhaps a greater 
character in our history than if President. 

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

is remembered for characters passed into history as bold agitators, 
Georgia sent out Toombs and Stephens, exact physical and mental 
antipodes. Toombs threatened, tossing his hair with coarse defi- 
ance and pugilistic airs. Alexander Stephens, a wan, pale-faced 
skeleton of a man, piped in impassioned strains praises of the 
Union, deprecating as in later years, when a rebel Vice-President, 
the arbitrament of the sword. Brown, of Mississippi, Lamar, now 
Justice of the Supreme Court, were pronounced fire-eaters ; while 
Garrett and E. M. Pryor, of Virginia, voluble in satire and fiery in 
invective, gave assurance that the day of collision was not far in 
the future. Mr. Pryor I have often met in New York since the 
war, the same nervous, sharp-featured, tawny-complexioned Virgin- 
ian, who is said to pride himself on Indian blood, as one of the 
large traditional family of Pocahontas. 

I was present at the acrimonious debate between this Virginian 
and Potter, of Wisconsin, resulting in a duel challenge. If any- 
thing could be called more barbaric than slave-breeding and the 
code in Old Virginia, it might be Potter's choice of a broadsword 
as the Aveapon, which his challenger declined. It more than 
repelled a sneer for cowardice at the North, and Avas a salutary 



66 EEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

That legislative liall was like a tinder box, a miniature arsenal, 
many of the leaders armed with a pistol or a bowie-knife, ready 
for an emergency. The North was to be bullied, and malcontents 
were jeered, even Democrats, if not shouting the party shibboleth. 
James H. Lane, of Indiana, afterward Senator from Kansas, said 
his fall by a duel or by assassination was only a question of time. 
Not toleration, but disunion or war was in the air. 

THE RADICAL GROUP. 

For years Clay, Webster and Calhoun were in public esteem 
the Senatorial triumvirate. Now the charm was broken, and who 
were to be their successors in national fame ? There were three, 
bold and able, with national repute, by an overruling power to 
enlighten the North, while staying the progress of the slave prop- 
agandists. These were Senators Seward, S. P. Chase (whose per- 
sonality and service I have given elscAvhere), and John P. Hale of 
New Hampshire. 

Could there have been statesmen whose words were better 
enforced by an honored, national, public career, or blessed with 
more varying adaptations by native gifts for grand and decisive 
debate ? Senator Hale broke the shackles of party on the admis- 
sion of Texas, and had enjoyed the honors of a Free Soil Presi- 
dential candidate. Jovial in social life, apt in repartee and story, 
without fear, and free from party shackles, his presence was an 
expectation. There was humor in the flashing eye, and power in 
the sarcastic tongue, which gave him all the qualities of a minor- 
ity leadership. His wit was perennial, and poAverful in repelling 
attacks. 

Senator Seward's speeches taught the people, while he was 
held to be an artful Machiavelli by those across the chamber. 
Always in good temper, and never prevoked to personal retort. 

S. P. Chase was ready with the law, and spoke with solemnity 
on great themes which he had studied, not in threat, but in a spirit 
of statesmanship, which was above slave laws, and codes, and in 
defiance of creed enactments. A towering brow and great purity 
of character were only tokens of a conscientious statesman. 

I think the picture of Mr. Chase, standing while reading the 
Emancipation Proclamation, and his face on the greenback which 
was our financial savior, striking portraits of the great Senator. 



EEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 67 

With a greenback in my pocket I felt that I carried good money, 
and tlie image of a true man whose nature was hearty, loyalty 
unquestioned. Chase was eminently a lawyer rather than a gifted 
orator. He was denied the gift of humor, but the solemnity of 
manner in appeal to great principles, became a prophesy of his 
future. He was afterward Governor of Ohio, Secretary of the 
Treasury — our second Hamilton — and elevated to the chair of 
Chief Justice, where, by the testimony of the great lawyers of that 
bench, he never had a superior. 

He Avas a great student fortified to assault, and a severe judge 
of measures, which later perplexed Mr. Lincoln. The Minister of 
Finance Avas not second to the Minister of War, and delays Avith 
failures in the field were reprobated at least by indirection, and 
Radical leaders would have made him the successor of Mr. Lincoln 
after his first term. What was his ambition but honorable? 
Others were sowing and reaping where he had prepared the soil. 
A Cabinet adviser Avas only a name, and there Avas no ear for a 
Radical suggestion in prosecution of the war, and a promotion to 
the Chief Justiceship was looked upon as an expedient to placate a 
rival Avho personally Avas in accord with the radical politics of But- 
ler and Fremont, and Gen. Phelps, the Louisiana radical. 

Charles Sumner, after a contest of national import, was elected 
Senator in place of Mr. Webster. Bearing state seal and commis- 
sion, he Avas never a place seeker ; was a student and companion of 
Justice Story, and the author of the "True Grandeur of Nations," 
which has linked his fame with the world's savants and orators. 

Mr. Sumner was the scholar of the body, and in his first term 
an orator unapproached in the beauty of language and fervency of 
appeal. If unlearned in parliamentary laAv, he was an authority 
in international laAv, and our statutes and their interpretations 
were quoted as readily as the most familiar maxims. It was an 
error that he was engrossed with a single idea. The wants of 
incohate states found in him an adA^ocate on a high plane of states- 
manship. The wrongs of sailors and soldiers were not overlooked, 
and the world never saw the Fugitive Slave LaAv in its full 
deformity until exposed by Sumner. That he was out of the line 
of a Presidential aspirant lent power to his utterances, and pre- 
pared the country for an execration of slavery in the crime against 
Kansas, and the assaults of an assassin. 

In native personal endowment there were attractions, added to 



68 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

the culture of a scholar and marked colloquial vivacity, which 
caused him to become the envy of tread-mill conservatives, as well 
as the idol of young Americans. I forget his antagonisms with 
Grant, social scandals, infelicities, and that temporary clouding of 
his fame on the fraternal battle-flag resolutions. All of calamity 
incident to a great actor, including a murderous assault, is not to 
be mentioned in the view of an obverse bright shield more than 
heraldic. The fame of a Nestor in the Senate was reached. The 
industry and unfaltering devotion of a public servant was found in 
volumes, making the richest contributions to our national history, 
by a statesman ; and apart from petulance and pedantry, so-called 
by indolent inferiors, his career stands unchallenged by the critics 
of the world. 

It was my fortune to hear his first Senatorial speech — which 
was in debate on a welcome to the patriot Kossuth. It was of all 
the efforts brief, pathetic and classic, a prelude to a rich flavor in 
debate, with an elevating tone in discussions, led by a supreme 
master of assemblies. How clear the tones in fascinating cadence : 
" Our guest waits at the door for a boon of hospitality which tyr- 
anny denies. An expatriated hero who has passed the Bosphorus 
to meet the perils of the ocean on a patriotic mission sublime as 
that of Lafayette. Millions wait on your deed, doubly valued by 
a spontaneous welcome." All the previous speeches seemed as 
cold, studied declamations, contrasted with this effort, with a Sen- 
ator, a man and soul behind it. The status of an orator was fixed 
beyond cavil, as that of a never-setting star in the heavens. 
With all the early caricature of Mr. Sumner as a looking-glass 
declaimer, one never found him in an encounter trivial, but learned 
and powerful as an antagonist. 

After the Brooks assault on Mr. Sumner, Massachusetts, to her 
honor, kept a seat for the wounded Senator while in Europe — par- 
tially restored to see decades of service after the great traitors had 
fled the chamber, and brutal Brooks had, while yet a young man, 
been called to his final account. 

Senator Ben. Wade, of Ohio, comes on the stage. A rough- 
spoken, reputed profane man. He took a full measure of men, 
and bluster only set him in defiance of fire-eaters, who never made 
a second attack. It Was known that he was a good shot, and quite 
a stranger to fear. In our war he was a large figure ; not popular 
in the chamber, yet brave^ and an oracle with the masses down 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 69 

through the Johnson impeachment trial, when Wade might have 
been a successor of the false " Moses." 

In the House there was a small Radical force, but effective for 
attack. The old man eloquent, John Quincy Adams, had passed 
away, but the venerable Horace Mann, of national fame, had 
appeared as his successor. Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio, was a 
bold speaker, and in the use of stern logic called out barbarous 
imprecations, and an expulsion by the slaveholders, which gave 
him greater power and fame on a re-election. George W. Julian, 
of Indiana, the Quaker, became a progressive educator. Gen. R. 
C. Schenck, then a flaxen-haired youth, was often on the floor, in 
service with bold and bitter retorts. 

Thaddeus Stevens I then saw for the first time, and heard in 
debate, to be assured that in a majority party he would become a 
dauntless color-bearer. The '•' Old Commoner " was a born leader, 
more than able, of rare perception in the analysis of character, 
liappy in assault, firm as a rock to resist the Hotspurs of the day, 
and the evil ambition which culminated in treason and war. In 
the overthrow of slavery was he not a potent helper of the great 
War Minister Stanton, and our great army captains ? 

I have pictured him down to the war era, execrating rebels, 
later drawing the greenback bill, and securing the law for the issue 
of hundreds of millions of bonds, certain they would never be dis- 
honored, so abiding was his faith in our cause and the Nation. 

CONSCIENCE WHIGS 

was a party designation of the time, occasioned by a bolt upon the 
nomination of President Taylor, who had earned the confidence of 
Liberals, while they distrusted his successor Fillmore, who signed 
the Fugitive Slave Bill. Daniel Webster seemed the especial 
aversion of Charles Allen, of Worcester, Massachusetts, leading in 
denunciation of Mr. Webster for receiving a subscription of tens 
of thousands of dollars in Boston, through the agency of Peter 
Harvey, which was held up as an act pensioning the betrayer of 
Massachusetts. I listened to the defense of Mr. Webster by 
George Ashman, of Springfield, Massachusetts, and by Mr. Hill- 
iard, of Alabama, which created a great sensation. My predictions 
at that time came to be history. The Supreme Court of the 
United States was struggling to conceal its spirit in the Dred 



70 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

Scott decision. I could see no settlement of the slavery question 
in the compromise measures which precipitated the great Kansas 
struggle, involving a great issue, which it required civil war to 
decide. Southern Senators from the different states seemed to 
hunt like beasts of prey, in couples; while the Kadicals on the 
defensive brought to their aid powerful recruits like Wilson of 
Massachusetts, Fessenden of Maine, and Chandler of Michigan. 
The lapse of forty years sweeps every one of these great actors 
mentioned from the legislative halls, and I can think of none of 
the number conspicuous who have not passed over to the silent 
majority, save Robert C. Winthrop of Massachusetts, Hannibal 
Hamlin of Maine, and George W. Julian of Indiana. 

In retracing the Radical actors of four decades agone, I am 
moved with devout gratitude to God for the" legislators who 
became instructors by speech and example to the nation. I hold h 

in special regard those "faithful among the faithless found," h 

whose cheeks did not blanch before threats and violence, and were 
never suspected of venality in the marts of business, or in the 
counsels of the political caucus. All men have not a price for 
recreancy to principle or a trust. 

A biographical estimate of the foes of liberty in the halls of 
Congress, in a study of those who lost station and honor, is a 
measure of the losses by perjury, not less than of lives clouded by 
defeat in an unholy cause, and sorrows of war, anew enforcing the 
Divine admonition: "They that take the sword shall perish by 
the sword." 






CHAPTEE V. 

Garrison — Whittier — Simms, the Fugitive — U. S. Marshal Dev- 
ens — Caleb dishing — Henry Wilson — Anson P. Burtinganie 
— Theodore Parker. 

KADICALS OF 1851. 

Reformers and agitators in 1851 in the vicinity of Boston I 
have grouped from personal knowledge gained by eye and ear — to 
me valued impressions not dimmed by strife nor lapse of time. 

Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, had given a striking nar- 
rative, couched in elegant language, and with fire contrasted with 
which his later speeches seem tame. His long career, and counsel 
to his race to put money in the purse, which he followed person- 
ally, has fully justified the prediction of his most ardent friends of 
fifty years ago, who have traced his course with deliglit, winning 
honor as an official in Washington and a diplomat. The general 
denunciation of the time was bitter ; to be met by the press voic- 
ing the religionists, contending for their church, while politicians 
cared not to peril their platforms before competing slave-holders. 
Non-voters were deemed fanatics less dangerous than the Birney 
and Hale men, who chose at first between the then two great 
debauched parties. 

William Lloyd Garrison could by right wear the decorations of 
a general, for he led in a long campaign under fire. In time, he 
was early ; radical in utterance, persistent and uncompromising 
until fairly a victor, and the weapons of his foes were broken and 
scattered like the arms of the vanquished on retreat from the 
field of carnage. The most brilliant press contemporaries were 
obscured by the editor with the ready pen and the speaker incisive 
and logical in debate, terrible in denunciation, culling the burning 
words of the old Prophets and the woes uttered by the God-man 
with a solemnity and force sure to win the hearer, or arouse doubt- 
ers in frenzied hate. A voice whose solemn cadence, with a pleas- 



72 BUIflNISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

ant, wooing countenance, often banished prejudice engendered by 
slurs, epithets, and common vengeful imprecation. Was there 
ever a more benevolent face ? Or a spirit calling up in likeness 
the mildness of reformers and intrepidity of martyrs ? The man 
dominated the scene and turbulence and hisses ; mobs only charged 
higher the battery which shocked to paralysis the demoniac spirits 
rushing out to assault, but never subdued to hear. I saw him in 
the New York Tabernacle mob, and Captain Rynders was reported 

to have said : " I don't care a d n for the ' old prophets,' but it 

is the solemn tone of old bald-head that stirs h — 1 in me." The 
audience waited, expecting the flash of pistols and blows by war 
clubs. There were screams, blanched cheeks, sudden exits midst 
the howling of the mob, yet Garrison stood erect and spoke with- 
out a tremor. Benignant in smiles while lashing in execration the 
cohorts of slavery, foiled by a mysterious impersonation of the 
boldness of a warrior avowing almost satirically only a mission of 
peace. Then strangers found a key unlocking the heart and brain. 
He showed no fear nor uttered a murmur when drawn by the 
neck, a few years before, through the streets of the city of Boston, 
at the behest of a slave-holding mob. History tells how the 
shackles fell by the enginery and horrors of war waged for dis- 
union. But what mind can grasp the educational force of Garri- 
son and his Liberator, nor can any save a witness realize his social 
ostracism, taunts by the press, and the misnamed, pious resolves 
by the Ecclesiastics, and solemn official bearers of the holy ark. 

Where are his revilers now? What child is proud of blood 
poisoned by sordid trade, and the venality of dough-faces, whoin 
charity forgets and turns from their deeds with averted face. 
Revilers sleep in unhonored graves. The valiant once outcast, 
with a price on his head, smiles in artistic bronze on Common- 
wealth Avenue. The sentiment he holds in his hand gives no 
prop to free trade. He was an American — its honor first is the 
lesson of his life. I saw the plaster cast in the artist's studio and 
gave only the counsel of a novice — make it say, with the benig- 
nant face of John Oberlin, " I will be heard ! " The sons take up 
"love's work" to embalm by incident, and the whole record of the 
life of the man around whom rich and classic compeers revolved as 
satellites, in a day when the vision of seers was clouded and the 
multitude sent out the hisses of hate. 

About the year 1850 the cloud of obloquy was rising, as I 



-REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 73 

recall by an incident. An anniversary was observed, on the found- 
ing of the Liberator, and politicians of the class of Henry Wilson 
were present. I came with Thomas Russell, afterward the hus- 
band of a daughter of Father Taylor, who said, " I don't know that 
he was a Christian, but he was a sv/eet sinner." Certainly he 
was a genial friend and an elegant speaker, afterward politician, 
diplomat and able judge. 

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, wife of Dr. S. G. Howe, the philan- 
thropist, I met, then known by the eminence of her husband, and 
ten years later distinguished as the author of the " Battle Hymn 
of the Eepublic." 

I was in association with the Orthodox clergy, but could not 
admit that the Rev. Dr. A. Adams represented the church, only 
filial recreancy, when declaring in an emergency, and to meet a 
barbaric behest, that he would send his own mother back into 
slavery. Dr. Kirk, whom his friend and student, Dr. D. O. Mears, 
has justly extolled in a biographic volume, seemed very cautious in 
the pulpit. The eloquent pastor of Park Street Church, Dr. Stone, 
later of San Francisco, was in sympathy with the Washington 
church movement, while the Rev. Henry M. Dexter preached defi- 
antly against the mandates of the Fugitive Slave Law, as truly in 
sympathy with the radical utterances of the times as Dr. Blagden, 
of the Old South, was the dispenser of the gospel of union-saving 
and silence. To him I was introduced by his brother-in-law, 
Wendell Philips, and was honored with an invitation to preach in 
the Old South Church, under a sounding-board, making my first 
and last effort in the historic church, where its galleries made 
sleeping apartments in the Revolution, and the soldiers trained 
their steeds on the ground floor. Yet this was a less novel occur- 
rence than the fact that it was one person, myself, who was intro- 
duced by the high-born ornate Edmund Quincy, presiding at a 
memorial anniversary of the. founding of Garrison's Liberator. 

It was the talk of the time that there would have been less 
than the usual sleep in the Old South, even open-eyed gaze, had 
they gviessed that the author of the Sunday sermon was to be the 
eulogist of Garrison on Monday. I was thus reported, in the 
speech, strictly impromptu : 

Mr. Chairman. — Although called at this time a " Cosmopolite," it pleases me 
much at such an hour as this to have a locality. I have been a pastor, with t'.ie 
I>rivilege of being associated with men whose lives were linked with glorious 



74 BEMINISCENCEH OF FOBTY YEARS. 

causes. I call to mind one, in all places a man, who has gone to his great reward. 
Living, he was reviled, but at his death there was such universal lamentation as is 
never manifested at the death of those selfishly prudent, and ever "floating with 
the currents." The sundering of the " little thread " reveals what is in the hearts 
of the living, and there are many who must die, before the world's decision will be 
given 171 full. Mr. Garrison, the honored one of this brilliant assemblage, is such 
a personage. For him there are to be trumpet-tongues, and truth-telling speech. 
(Applause.) 

Differing from him in many things, I have heard the say of all classes. Years 
agone, when a lad, I heard his name and paper mentioned in association with all 
that is dishonest, indecent and intolerable. He was under the foot of piiblic opin- 
ion. Like the lion in the fable, he had no painter. But he has had them here, 
this evening, out of the ranks of Free Soil men — all professions — even the cau- 
tious of the Orthodox often associate our guest with integrity, heroism and true 
humanity. From the speech of slaveholders in private, I am led to believe they 
will covet the honor of furnishing his biography. (Cheers.) 

Orthodoxy talks of hell. But who finds it ? They surely who resist their 
convictions. I have said it, and I believe, that the reformer, unselfish, asking 
Divine guidance, going out in plans, labors and devotions, with his very self for 
human weal and for God, cannot find a hell. Disregarding sectarian lines in this 
day of compromises and moral bankruptcy, it little becomes us to make consign- 
ments/or eternity, when Heaven will ask of all as concerning our honored friend, 
Wm. Lloyd Garrison, "What did he do, and what will he become ? " (Applause.) 

As the hands of the clock admonish us that we are near the morning hour, I 
will sit down, Mr. Chairman, by saying that I have slept in a cabin in Wisconsin, 
on a high jioint of land, wliere the falling rain on one side flowed into the Fox 
river to make the leap of Niagara, and then to pass on down the St. Lawrence ; 
and where, on the other side, the rain coursed through the Wisconsin down to 
widen the " Father of Waters." A strange place, and the beginning of mighty 
forces — finding a parallel in the brain before me, which, for twenty years, has 
made highways to hearts, North and South, of more value to humanity than are 
the ways of the rivers to the ocean for commerce. May that brain continue to 
work, moving a j'ight arm to beat down slavery, and a left to raise up the degraded 
at home. Let us pray and labor for that day, when the Pulpit and the Politician 
shall be joined in hand with our guest, the hero of the press, that a national ejacu- 
lation may be heard in song, "Jehovah has triumphed, his people are free." 
(Cheers.) 

The company separating, Edmund Quincy said, "As you are a 
partial stranger in Boston, will you be my guest at Dedham, where 
my carriage will be at the depot ? To my thanks and plea for 
excuse, he said, " I not only live near a most venerable orthodox 
D. D., but you shall sleep on the bed occupied by LaFayette, 
twenty-five years ago a guest of our family, and on the pillow 
where he rested his princely head, and as your name indicates a 
Frenchman, I venture to urge you." So I went and began an 
acquaintance with a most accomplished agitator, and son of one of 
the first educators and statesmen of Massachusetts, whose figure, a 
real Harvard president, in bronze, stands near the Boston City Hall. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 75 

John G. Whittier was present, with poetic inspiration, lending 
cheer and dignity. Several times we met in the winter at the 
Marlboro Hotel, and the glance of that keen eye, sober mien, and 
benevolent face, has been an ever-present picture, and his every 
line seemed more than poetic revery — a gushing, exhilarating flow 
as from a source of purity for the cheer of the timid and the 
famishing. 

In a picture of 1849, " The Champions of freedom," by Brain- 
ard, the editors, orators and statesmen, have all gone save the 
crowned poet of humanity. Is it vanity to mention his letter of 
congratulation upon my birthday ? It is in honor, rather, of the 
writer than of the recipient, but time will only add to its value to 
the possessor. It is a pleasant souvenir that I should be known in 
Iowa and approved in a public career of forty years. I saw the 
poet later, to find a cordial reception at his home, and this was 
the visit, as described at the time : 

John G. "Whittier I have just seen at his winter residence on Oak Knoll, 
Danvers, Mass. Just 37 years ago I was introduced to him hy a gallant friend, 
Anson Burlingame, then a senator, while we were all guests of the old Marlboro 
Hotel of Boston. Mr. Burlingame he mentioned with affection, still warm in 
praise, like that exhibited in his verse, so often the nurse of volor and a perpetual 
reminder of good deeds by those temporarily under the ban of public opinion. 
There has ever been mingled balm and blessing for an actor enlisting his muse. 
Thus, now past eighty years, he stands alone the poet of the people, and still offers 
fresh and mellow fruitage. Who is first named as boldly sweeping the lyre when 
clanking chains sounded out our shame ? What name is first invoked to celebrate 
our second century under the Constitution in the congregation of states and the 
world's savans, on the oOth of Ai^ril ? To ask for the poet is to name one solitary 
in the just accord of the living to genius, patriotism and virtue. Mountains in 
their grandeur never shake hands, and like them is Whittier — tilone. Others on 
the journey, his peers in renown, have passed beyond embrace. 

I pass to the historic Art Hall of the mansion. There is a metal souvenir of 
Sumner, which sat in front of him while conning his great philippics, an elegant 
portrait of Bryant, numerous memoirs of the slavery struggle, the unloaded Quaker 
gun in the corner, a John Brown musket facing it — once loaded. The most 
attractive to me is the jjoet of 40 in life form, tlorid face and full muscle, inviting a 
contrast with the eye that has now lost its brilliancy, the ear duller than in youth 
to the melodies of song. Here are the plaintive and sad pictures of comrades and 
heroes. In conversation without a thought of privacy, he extols my idol of reform, 
Dr. Gamaliel Bailey, of Washington, and the National Ei-a. He was a brave 
social educator, a refined gentleman, who could lend his home and purse in rarest 
civility and welcome, to reformers gathered from many classes and lands, waiting 
for a voice and a friend. I ventiu-ed the name of Wendell Phillips: " Yes," with 
a sad cadence, " my lifelong friend — one of the grandest of men in every respect of 
a wonderful career." After an indirect mention of various persons by incident and 
comparison, it could not be concealed that he held a different position from Garri- 
son on the Sabbath question. But John Brown was the striking figure in the cen- 



76 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

tury, and Wendell Pliillips in his oratory and a life devotion to an unpopular cause, 
had won his way to the hearts of the people, and left no doubt as to his position in 
the world's history of heroes. 

At the Garrison meeting, there were many persons then claim- 
ing to belong to the royal family of Radicals — the Jacksons, the 
Mays, Bowditches and Follens, scholars in a welcome to plebeians. 
Stephen S. Foster was launching invectives like poisoned arrows. 
His wife, the Quakeress, Abby Kelley for years, plain in speech 
and in person, cornered the good Friends with so many "buts," 
yet the butt made of the tree the biggest end. Ellis Gray Loring 
was '' throwing himself away" in his profession, and smirching the 
family in a popular view. E.ev. Samuel J. May, the persistent 
agitator, smooth in speech and captivating in address, was only 
typical of a class true in service, but less conspicuous in the stormy 
Boston years of 1850 and 1851. The Fugitive Slave Law had just 
been enacted. Sharadeck, the slave, had been rescued from the 
officers, and on trial had caused chains, in fear of the people, 
to be thrown around the court-house under which I saw judges 
crouch in shame to reach their bench. Webster's speech of March 
seemed all the talk, and in solemn tones to be reverberating among 
the hills, meeting the anathemas of orators, bringing on a conflict 
not in theories alone, but by great actors. Devoted friends wept 
over a bid for the presidency — trade applauded. 

It was an educational era. All tradesmen and professional 
dependents were dumb, but off the pavements the freemen of 
Massachusetts had broken the shackles of party, and one great 
name for senator became a source of inspiration. It was Charles 
Sumner. Could he be elected ? Nathaniel P. Banks was made 
speaker, and the opening speech on taking the chair, was proof of 
a born parliamentarian and orator, who later graced the speaker's 
chair in Congress. He then directed with fidelity and courage a 
canvass which was of national import — a graduate in Taunton of 
his college, under which there was a water-wheel. 

The captive, Simms, became an object lesson in trial and rendi- 
tion ; soldiers with national arms I saw drilling ready to march on 
an enraged populace; judges of the high courts, morose, listless, 
like official servitors, detesting the cruel statute they had sworn to 
enforce ; then minor officers had the downcast, sullen look of lack- 
eys. The Marshal of the United States, Charles Devens, I pitied 
in his vassalage — young, elegant, comely — guarding the return 



BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 77 

of Simms as lie passed him down to the boat at the wharf for a 
Southern prison-house, stealthily at midnight, when friends were 
in slumber and the stars seemed to have gone out, ashamed to wit- 
ness the deed. This generation forgets that the young Marshal 
Devens, so captivating in person, was later a fighting major-gen- 
eral, cabinet officer, and the present learned judge and popular ora- 
tor. I do not. Socially and playfully, twenty years after the 
Simms rendition, I recalled my impression that he was the most 
captivating gentleman I had ever seen in such base, official service. 
''Yes, come around, and I will tell you more in sequel. I was an 
official, young, perhaps with common aspirations, but not in sym- 
pathy with the law, nor had I a doubt as to the future trend of 
opinion. The slave, Simms, I bought, and gave him freedom as 
soon as I could do it." Thus the State and Nation comes to 
regard Mr. Devens the man, and forgets the vassalage as an 
official. 

On the occasion I was an eye-witness, being called out at mid- 
night by Thomas Russell, afterward diplomat and judge. Theo- 
dore Parker was a looker-on, not like Paul, standing by, assenting. 
A hymn was lined, 

"Oh! there will be mourning," etc., 

which Eev. Mr. Foster, of New Hampshire, later a soldier, sung, 
as if voicing with solemn bass the just mockery due to this base 
deed which the city only learned by the morning press. Boston 
has not been good slave-hunting ground since this compound polit- 
ical blunder and crime. 

Sumner was now the idol. Before the Judges in Chambers I 
saw him appear in habeas corpus appeal, captivating by dignity, 
euphonious voice, and bold denunciation of the Fugitive Slave 
Law. For weeks the excitement was intense. Mr Sumner had 
a card with Daniel Webster's autograph of a few years before, to 
be shown at the U. S. Senate door : 

" Admit the bearer, Charles Sumner, always. 

D. Webstee." 

Now it was the question, shall the great State seal and verdict 
of the people become his card of admission to a seat Webster has 



78 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

vacated ? Sumner, personally, was not a candidate even ; so sen- 
sitive that lie could not be induced to modify an opinion, or even 
attend a social party, keeping country appointments as a lecturer 
in tlie midst of the contest. 

I think Caleb Gushing, far from the status of a "Free Soiler," 
with a few personal adherents, held the senatorial key. The illu- 
sion that he was a fortunate dark horse in the senatorial race, was 
early dispelled. He was feared and not without reason. A Tyler 
political marplot in Congress, soldier in the Mexican war, a restive 
spirit, and, as I saw him later, an advocate in the Supreme Court, 
bland, yet persistent in great cases like that of Mrs. Gaines, con- 
tending as the heir of hundreds of millions. Dead, there is 
recalled an elegant face, the man like a race-horse champing the 
bit, kept from a start ; his unconscious lips were in motion as if 
conning his speech ; but he never filled so large a space, nor 
uttered words that caused louder shoiits than wlien on the Senato- 
rial call, he responded, " Charles Sumner." That settled the ques- 
tion, and a curtain falls on the State House drama, transferring the 
actors to the streets, whooping in glee, and weeping and embrac- 
ing Avith the fervor of Mexicans in parlors and club rooms, to a 
late hour. 

HENRY WILSON, THE COBBLER. 

Wilson was the busiest, ever-present, i)ublic character in Bos- 
ton at this period — editor, caucits manager, and president of the 
Senate. He was a real shoemaker in his early days, and named 
the "Natick cobbler". Webster had publicly praised his political 
speeches, and they were warm friends up to the revolt of the 
"Conscience Whigs" in 1848, going for Van Buren, free-soiler, 
Adams and liberty. " That was the trial of my life," said Wilson. 
"I was poor, but had an ambition for promotion within my reach." 
It may not be credited, still it is a truth, that native American 
ideas and plans were important factors at this crisis. Foreigners, 
as a rule, were democratic. "None but Americans on guard," 
was a popular and square issue. Certainly the head men of the 
order were jubilant in seeing Mr. Wilson president of the Senate. 
It was curious how I came to know Mr. Wilson so well. The 
Sumner Free-Soil caucus would be held far into the night, and, 
quite a night-hawk myself, at the Marlboro Hotel, with not a 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 79 

vacant room in the house, I invited my new friend to share a bed 
in emergency. Would he never sleep ! The outlook of men and 
ways at Washington prompted questions for hours. Tliere was 
not one but frequent rests in my room, on the train having gone 
and the house being full. In frankness he said : " My chances for 
Congress are gone. I am too early by ten years, and I shall go to 
the rear and give room to adventurers Avith family and money, of 
which I have neither." Nothing is more creditable to the spirit of 
the time than his election to the United States Senate and Vice- 
Presidency by the aid of scholars, soldiers and millionaires. He 
had a rare fund of good sense ; of temperate habits, turning down 
his glasses at dinners when others drained them; and in truth 
could, in the latter part of his political career, refuse thousands in 
his poverty — a tribute to unquestioned probity maintained amidst 
the great opportunities of the Civil War. He had little love for 
sharp debate, yet did not shrink in contest with Judge Black on 
the legal status of Secretary Stanton, his friend. Truly, a simple, 
great-hearted patriot. While sitting in the president's chair in the 
senate, he sent down his card, as I was then a visitor from Iowa, 
asking me to meet him in the marble room. There he presented 
me his volumes, "Kise and Fall of the Slave Power," with the 
regards of the author. He sighed for an escape from enforced 
silence in his chain. "I have no money, nor any prospect of ser- 
vice soon. How I wish I was West, an owner of stock and farm, 
away from the voice of a coming storm." While loyal to Grant, 
there was no praise for his personal rule nor sympathy in his treat- 
ment of Senator Sumner. 

Let it be told, Vice-President Wilson aspired to be Grant^s 
successor — this is not a guess, but a weak and wild ambition, 
indulged after a partial period of paralysis which impeded his 
speech. In fact, he never was a fluent orator — measured and 
sloAv, with thoughts too heavy for tongue, like Webster — an invol- 
untary assimilation to one of whom he was proud to be called a 
protege. 

As to persons, parties and national history, he was the best 
informed Senator of his time, and a story-teller of great resources, 
hearty in laughter. 

The mortification in his Senatorial career was on the advent of 
the "Black Crook" theatrical troupe. By repute, it was a poorly- 
dressed company, and on a banter, thoughtlessly, cheap gallery 



80 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

tickets were procured for several Senators and Representatives. 
The theatre manager was apprised of their arrival, and ordered 
them to be conducted in a body to the most conspicuous seats. It 
proved to be more than a boyish — a Senatorial lark — when the 
usher, with the lungs of a Senator, announced the Honorable Sen- 
ate of the United States. In later years Mr. Wilson, recounting it, 
said, " It was the worst sell of my life, and my first and last visit 
to the antics of shameless 'Black Crook' performers. To have 
left the house would have made the trick more conspicuous, which 
was played by one of our company, but never forgiven." 

In the last years of his public life he visited Iowa to see a prai- 
rie for the first time. At Des Moines the citizens proposed a ban- 
quet in his honor. " No ; if I have another night in Iowa, it will 
be spent with Grinnell, with whom in an emergency I used to 
lodge in Boston, when both beds and money were scarce." He 
was given, in my house, the bed that had rested John Brown, and 
at a meeting in the park he spoke to a crowd of admirers, and not 
long after died by a paralytic stroke in the Vice-President's room 
at Washington. A man of courage, but holding that the duel code 
was a barbarism. For stimulants there was a hereditary taste, but 
his temperance career was brilliant as a speaker, and as President 
of the National Temperance Society, he rendered exemplary serv- 
ice, aided by the finances and intrepidity of the late William E. 
Dodge. 

ANSON p. BURLINGAME, 

then Senator, was the personal antithesis of Wilson, and in the 
Sumner campaign marshal of the young political cohorts, cultured, 
magnetic as an orator, genial, the facial Adonis of the Senate. 
Of much of his history this generation knows little. 

He married the daughter of Isaac Livermore, the financier of 
Charleston. Night work and fiill rooms made him often a bed- 
fellow at my rooms in the Marlboro. Then there was no conceal- 
ment of his ambition to go to Congress, as he did, rising to the 
rank of treaty maker, as diplomat, and at last the honored plenipo- 
tentiary servant of China. 

Poverty had given him stamina, and a residence on the frontier 
in Michigan cultivated the taste of a sportsman, in which was 
found recreation. On the assault of Senator Sumner, in Wash- 



BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 81 

ington, by "Bully Brooks," of South Carolina, Burlingame was 
with one voice chosen to execrate the murderous deed, and speak 
for insulted Massachusetts. A finer philippic in indignation and 
arraignment ifnder parliamentary law, can not be found in the 
language. 

Burlingame, with towering indignation, said of Brooks' cow- 
ardly act, "1 denounce it in the name of the sovereignty of Mas- 
sachusetts, which was stricken down by the blow ; I denounce it in 
the name of humanity; I denounce it in the name of civilization, 
which it outraged; I denounce it in the name of that fair play 
which even bullies and prize-fighters respect. What ! Strike a 
man when he is pinioned — when he cannot respond to a blow! 
Call you that chivalry? In what code of honor did you get your 
authority for that?" It stung the assassin; and the reputed high 
blood, taken with the wounding of the pride of South Carolina, 
required a resort to the code duello. Burlingame received the 
challenge and accepted it, naming Canada by Niagara Falls, as the 
place, and the weapons rifles, and the range so near that the shots 
must be fatal, and on neutral soil with less fear of arrest. The 
coward did not accept ; expelled from Congress, he died with the 
brand of personal infamy, and a disgrace to the chivalry of his 
state. What was the status of Burlingame ? Praised for his 
matchless speech, feted for courage, even admired by moralists 
who were happy in the explosion of an idea that the North had 
only the blood of <' craven agitators." It ended challenges for 
words in debate by the South, under their code. 

Burlingame I met at the Chicago Convention on the nomination 
of Mr. Lincoln in 1860, both being delegates, and that was the 
scene of an ovation. Judge William D. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, 
late Nestor of the House of Eepresentatives, had spoken from a 
stand for receiving the delegations in open air. Also, that great 
stump orator, Henry S. Lane, of Indiana, who began, "I am the 
next Governor of Indiana, and I see you are glad to see me, and 
the feeling is heartily mutual." 

I hinted by a whisper to the chairman that Burlingame, of 
Massachusetts, would stir up the boys. 

"Bring him near and introduce him; my voice is all gone." 

I need not say that the orator was loaded for that occasion. 
This was my introduction as reported : 

"The nation has heard of an invitation made to one Brooks, 



82 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

the cowardly assailant of Sumner, to cross the Canadian border; 
there would have been no farcical arrest ; no burlesque of coffee 
and pistols, but rifles at short range. Where was your chivalry, 
declining before the high blood of a Puritan cavaliei' of Massachu- 
setts ? He is here to speak." 

How his voice did ring out ; only drowned by cheers as he 
made Gov. Banks his candidate — the schooled mechanic, Speaker 
of Congress, the " iron man ". That crowd would have nominated 
Burlingame before Banks or Lincoln. I dined with him in 1861 
in Washington, and recall this : '' I am a restless spirit and have an 
ambition to see the world and serve abroad." He was early made 
Minister to China by Mr. Lincoln, and in 1867 became the Ambas- 
sador of China to this country and to all the powers of Europe, a 
post which he held until his death in 1870. If it was a distinction 
to draw a larger salary than received by any American, there was 
a higher honor in diplomatic service for hundreds of millions of 
people whose gates have been barred against the English people 
for centuries. He had his faults and foibles, but what American 
was not happy for the fortunes of a gentleman of culture who low- 
ered the plumes of southern chivalry, and won officially more than 
a President's power, and at his death a wreath of honor which the 
subjects of Kings had striven for in vain? 

THEODORE PARKER. 

While on the Eadical list, I do not omit Theodore Parker, a 
by-word name, being by the popular say an infidel and a Garrison- 
ite. To me he was logical in debate, yet heavy as contrasted with 
Phillips. He was a Harvard scholar — a theological debater and a 
living protest against the Unitarian Church which disowned him, 
but could not keep the curious boys from his people's church, 
where were the blendings of heresy and caricatures of doxy and 
conservatism, most shocking to philosophy. He was rather deep 
than clear to the masses, and the multitude of his volumes and his 
linguistic erudition made him the peer of scholars. His sermon on 
'Immortality" eclipses all in freshness and vigor. For inciting 
the rescue of a detained fugitive, he had the honor of an indict- 
ment by jury, yet not a burlesque trial. He was a rare scholar, 
greatly missed by his intimate friends, who lamented the cool, 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 83 

brave spirit holding forth to crowds in Music Hall, until a fatal 
disease drove him to Florence, where he died. He was vigorous 
and original in thought, inciting the schools and the calmer speech 
of Boston in praise for the gift of a library of 13,000 volumes. 
This act softened the enmity against the dead patriot and 
reformer. 



CHAPTER VI. 

^^ Go West, Young Man, Go West" — Out-door Speaking in New 
York — Failure of Voice — Horace Greeleijs Advice — Copy of 
Greeleifs Letter — Proposed Colony — Turned from Missouri hy 
Slavery — Protege of Henry Farnam — Railway Magnate — 
Fortunate Location of the City of Gri7inell. 

I'ntekest attaches to those incipient public acts which have 
brought beneficent results. The story of the Genesis of Grinnell 
has been told in consecutive letters to the children. Their study- 
will be of value to living cotemporaries, possibly stimulating 
co-operation in efforts for organized emigration. 

Conspicuous failures in attempts at organized emigration have 
been many, but in common association with sordid grasping and 
the strife of ambitious leaders, which should not detract from the 
policy in the founding of settlements like that described in this 
simple narrative. There was Marietta in Ohio, founded in patri- 
otic protest against slavery, from which Marietta College sprang. 
Oberlin, Ohio, came to be through the agencies of capitalists and 
devoted men, in a land-purchase and college, the result of labors of 
pioneers gone to their reward, whom later generations can never 
forget. Their fortitude, and consecration to principle and a great 
educational scheme, require no monument for perpetuation. Gales- 
burg, Illinois, had a land company investing in rich soil, and a 
college scheme, the product of capital, experience and devotion. 
The city of Greeley, Colorado, can be cited with a charmed his- 
tory. Enriched by water supply, with rare attractions of climate, 
it had oneness of moral sentiment, with union in labor, while under 
the ban of intolerance and ridicule. These cities had the details 
of action, and corporate powers, with names now noted in philan- 
thropic, wise purpose. What there was in the founding of Grin- 
nell was an unwritten purpose under the hat of one man, waiting 
on opportunity. Formal unity in action there was none. The 
whirl of the horses to the carriage, and striking alone for the land 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 85 

office while his comrades debated localities, was an assumption, 
and the decisive act which led to what follows of incident or story. 
It is a fresh version of sacrifices and successes, related to the epi- 
sodes and romance of thirty-six years ago, and much like the devo- 
tion of the founders of Denmark Academy, and the heroic personal 
and pecuniary sacrifices of our brothers of Tabor College on the 
west, worthy to be written in letters of gold. Here are the 
letters : 



My Dear Children : 

With pleasure, and I trust with profit to the great cause of the Master, I was the 
pastor of the Union Congregational Church of the city of New York for three years. 
Devoted and nohle as were the people, with large plant for church extension and 
removal, I was to leave them. It came about in this way, under God's providence. 
Speaking intemperately in the open air at the ship-yards in New York, in 1852-3, 
was indirectly the occasion of my expatriation to the "West. 

William H. Webb, the great ship-builder on the East River, furnished timber 
for comfortable seats occupied by non-cliurch goers, and workmen coming out 
with their families, where there was good singing, order and spirit, which lent to 
the service at least the charm of novelty. 

Among those interested in the ragged schools and out-door talk of the laymen, 
there were Hon. William E. Dodge, the eminent Christian philanthropist; also, 
ex-attorney general of the United States, Benjamin F. Bntler. He was a specimen 
of a courtly "elect Democrat", whose Sandy Hill "stated preaching" correspon- 
dence while of the Van Buren regency of an early day, was the occasion of irrever- 
ent talk. William Allen Butler, author and satirical poet in " Miss Flora Mc 
Flimsey," is a son who perpetuates the name of a father not less distinguished as a 
Christian gentleman than a lawyer. 



The following letter furnishes an historic and ludicrous inci- 
dent of the times, related to a distinguished character : 

The boy's school in my charge on Sixth street is crowded. It is composed of 
strolling, poorly-clad orphans, and venders of newspapers, a smart but rough set. 
They demand a varied entertainment, and I secured the promise of an address from 
the great lawyer and politician, Benjamin F. Butler, once attorney-general of the 
United States under Gen. Jackson. I had the promise of quiet and correct deport- 
ment in his honor. Mr. Butler, a pleasant, venerable gentleman, was presented, to 
be heartily cheered. He asked, " Boys, what shall I speak about*? " " Anything! " 
"How long ?" " Twenty minutes, thirty if awful good," shouted one. "Call it 
twenty," said Mr. Butler, "and that is a Sunday trade, but you must keep quiet." 
"And I will time you, boss," said a leader, upon which there was a show of 
watches. This seemed to occasion a little nervousness on the part of the speaker. 
A simple and elegant address was made, but the application was not reached 
when the shout went, " Time's up ! Time's up ! " " But I have a concluding story 
for you." '' No, no! A bargain is a bargain if it is Sunday." I came to the res- 
cue, saying that this venerable gentleman was not used to such rudeness. The 
reply was, "We keep our contract; time's out. No stories." Mr. Butler arose, a 



86 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

louder shout, "Time's up! " drowning all words of persuasion, with a threat of 
going to dinner, and causing such a tumult that Mr. Butler, a picture of mortifica- 
tion, sat down, and fearing a second guy as to time, left the superintendent help- 
less, and the hoys masters of the situation. 

In the morning I went down to the lawyer's office to take the apology of the 
school, and the promise of less rudeness on another visit, also my own regrets. 
"No second visit! " I was mortified. " Before thousands I have spoken in open 
air ; in our higher court for years, with toleration at least ; hut I never met such a 
rebuff in all my life, and I am clear of another exposure before the vagrants. It 
was a blunder of course in the fixing of the time, and I had not got to the story. 
Let it pass. They had too many bull's-eye watches, and it was both the sharp and 
rough experience in my career as a speaker, for which I blame no one but 
unwashed Young America." 

Mr. Horace Greeley, the great editor, was often a speaker on 
temperance, with others less known to fame. The meetings came 
to be the resort of curious gentlemen in their carriages, and even 
the notorious Tweed, afterward the convicted plunderer, then an 
alderman, would be present and slyly hand out a golden eagle 
in compliment to the service. One Sunday I quite broke down 
with hoarseness. Mr. Greeley was in the- rear of the crowd, but 
he did not come forward to my relief, as was his custom at various 
meetings, when called upon for the closing words. 

I made my way to the Tribune office the next morning to chide 
Mr. Greeley for not coming to my aid in an emergency, saying my 
last effort was made. " Well," said he, " the crowd was large, and 
I did not like to push through it ; but you are laid by, no doubt ; 
only don't get ready for a fashionable European health trip, or to 
lounge in the city, which is no place to stay except with occupation 
and good health. Go West, ycnmrf man, go West. There is health 
in the country, and room away from our crowds of idlers and imbe- 
ciles." " That," I said, " is very frank advice, but it is medicine 
easier given than taken. It is a wide country, but I do not know 
just where to go." " It is all room away from the pavements. I 
want some one at once to take a trip for the Tribune, and write me 
from the Illinois State Fair, at Springfield. You can do it. Solon 
Robinson, the agricultural editor, says you have knowledge of ani- 
mals. I doted on the trip myself ; but you make the best report 
you can. I will see that you have railway passage, and will write 
you a letter which will secure you attention and a chance to do us 
service, and make a spread in your own way." 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 87 

This is the letter he handed me : 

New York, Sept. 25, 1833. 
Mr. J. B. Grinnell of this city visits the Illinois Agricultural State Fair at 
Springfield, 111., and will report therefrom for The Tribune. I pray you to show 
him whatever courtesy you may fairly do, and enable him to give us a full report 
of the Fair. Yours, 

Horace Greeley. 
To the editor of the State Journal, Springfield, III. 

I had a fine time every Avay, and made a lengthy report which 
was acceptable, and opened the way indirectly for much that fol- 
lows in narration. 

This answers the queries and gives the facts in regard to the 
more than legendary counsel, " Go West, young man, go West " — 
a shot at thousands of dullards since my day ; I was the young 
man whom Mr. Greeley told to go, and I went. I have never 
found occasion to regret the fact that I was a protege of his — a 
life-long correspondent and friend. I record the warm tribute of 
my heart to the greatest American Journalist, who not only made 
public my <' Badger" letters, but received and printed what would 
be equal to a volume, in praise of Iowa. On his last visit to our 
state he wrote that he had seen the model city, in respect to mor- 
als and education. 

THE PLAN or SETTLEMENT. 

My voice being impaired, the delicacy of my child requiring 
the tonic of country air, furnished strong and added inducements 
to make plans for western emigration. On returning from my 
western and Missouri trip, I elaborated a scheme which the stu- 
pidity of another, with several casualties, would not allow to go 
into full execution. In the New York Tribune and New York 
Independent I advertised for correspondence with parties desirous 
of educational facilities, and of temperance and Congregational 
affinities, who wished to settle on some new western railroad or 
one projected. 

" Colonist " was my address, and both Mr. Greeley and Joshua 
Leavitt had vouched for the character and good faith of " Colo- 
nist." Then I wrote short articles in the line of my project, 
against isolated emigration and in favor of associating for frater- 
nal social good. 



88 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

Each year of my western stay has confirmed its philosophy, 
and, had I met a failure, the advantages of homeogeneous settle- 
ment could not be gainsaid. It brought a legion of answers, with 
troops of professionals and aspiring marshals, as if sure of the 
privates for troops. I wish they were at hand in refutation of 
Bellamy and his Utopian romance, *' Looking Backward," before 
a possible new edition — a burlesque on the facts in human nature 
as revealed by my project. 

Those comfortable in riding are not found voluntarily taking a 
walk, or drawing a load in traces, if having honestly earned and 
paid for an easy passage. Our scheme was a plain rural life, with 
patience to wait and grow, like the products of agriculture, to the 
stage of fruit, shade, culture and repose for age. My scheme I 
knew was not Utopian, but broad, generous and beneficent ; and I 
now see that it was by an unseen hand I was led and upheld. 

The following, from The Independent, was one of the articles to 
which I refer : 



An advertisement in The Independent relating to a "Western enterprise, seems 
to furnish occasion for a brief discussion of a topic with manifold relations. 

The tide of emigration westward, whether for good or for ill, can no more be 
stayed than the course of the gulf-stream. The late census returns furnish proof 
of the general health of the western states. Owners of stocks valued at a hundred 
millions of dollars, invite the enterprising to make a home on new soil, to subserve 
the interests of both capitalist and producer. The last year, the present and the 
next, will span the prairies and groves, hitherto almost without an inhabitant, with 
more than a thousand miles of railroad ; so that the hardships of frontier life shall 
no more be brought to mind by the multitudes of pioneers "ticketed through" 
to the cheapest and most fertile lands on the continent. Landholders in the east 
are buying out the small proprietors ; and while the vocation of a farmer is yearly 
becoming more profitable and honorable, rich soil westward, only a two days' jour- 
ney distant, will be purchased at $5 the acre, rather than inferior soil eastward at 
$50. Economical considerations, combined with the adventurous spirit and mod- 
ern facilities for traveling, will secure the transfer of a numerous people to new 
homes on the course of " the star of empire ". 

Not those alone of undefined opinions, and wanting position in the home of 
their youth, will change their abode. Churches now weak are to suffer a severe 
depletion. A Presbyterian minister in western New York writes me: "I am 
almost discouraged ; my most enterprising men, and the very best families are going 
"West." A letter received last week fi-om a pastor in Berkshire County, Massachu- 
setts, contains the following passage: "The course of business is such in our coun- 
try as to be steadily draining the very life-blood out of these mountain districts. 
"We are steadily losing ground, and I see no practicable way of helping it. Almost 
all of our enterprising youth of both sexes leave us when they reach maturity, and 
our best families are emigrating to the "West." 

How, then, should such persons go "West? Observation in the "West, and a 
careful study of the whole question, prompts this answer: In companies, with 



REMINISCENCES OF FOETT YEARS. 89 

persons of congenial, moral and religious sentiments, embracing mechanics, and 
pecuniary ability to make the school and the Church paramount and attractive 
institutions from the outset. To name the reasons for this opinion is enough. It 
will contribute to the protection of those emigrating. In the northwest, there are 
thousands of persons lost to the Church by removal. They have made a home dis- 
tant from their denomination, and are seldom in church ; or they are surrounded 
by denominations with whom they do not choose to unite while there is hope in 
the future of enjoying their own. "Hope deferred" relaxes exertion; and soon 
the once fair and flom-ishing professor is seen relapsing in his principles, and with 
perverted taste, conformed to the irreligious habits of frontier life. Observation 
has proved that those who are strangers, and do not in their new home from the 
first avow their religious convictions, may never do it. Their excuse "that they 
find nothing in the Church as it used to be at home," may not be valid, while 
their removal from the presence of congenial friends, will prove the shipwreck of 
their principles. 

"My people are so scattered! " is the mournful expression of many a home 
missionary; for well they know that a monthly hearing of the Word ordinarily 
fails to secure the fruits which the pastoral relation contemplates. This is the 
condition of thousands of families, which cannot at present be remedied, since a 
change of home is not so easily made, and there is a lack of ministers even to sup- 
ply the organized cliurclies. 

If it be said that the Christian should be a light everywhere, and as leaven 
among the ungodly, the position will not be denied; but the facts are, the few 
yield to the many, and a single Christian family or a few poor families can effect 
but little in a community where there is a strong preorganized irreligious senti- 
ment. A weak society may be formed with the best of princii)les, but, from its 
pecuniary dependence, only to be led and perverted by designing men, to the dis- 
honor of religion, and, as numerous localities evidence, inflicting a blow on a 
given denomination, from which it will require years to recover. 

The Bishops of Ireland complain that one-half the Catholics emigrating to 
America are lost to the Church ; and having studied the causes of this loss, Rome 
prefers that her adherents should dwell near to the priest and the Church in pov- 
erty, rather than with plenty and distant from the Church. Protestants may 
learn from their enemies the methods in order to preservation and power. A les- 
son may be known from towns in Vermont, New York, Ohio and Illinois, which 
were settled by a heterogeneous people, distracted by numerous sects, and which 
still lack that absorbing element of intiuence which in towns adjacent, settled by 
congenial spirits, has sustained schools and seminaries, and an able ministry, all 
contributing to a still greater assimilation. 

Organized emigration becomes a Christian duty, if a new home is sought. 
There is a natural proclivity to the strong side, and a horror of minorities. Bad 
men in new neighborhoods, in the presence of strong Christian men, have often 
given up controversy, and from motives of peace and policy, have placed them- 
selves within the reach of the minister's voice, which has eventuated in their 
conversion. 

In the time of rebellion, government is respected according to the number and 
character of forces sent to quell the outbreak ; and the force and position of Chris- 
tians in the frontier States, determine their influence on the all-abounding errors, 
and whether Christ's triumph shall be early and complete, or delayed indefinitely. 
Government erects the light-house at-such a height, and with a given number of 
lamps. Fitful, chance lights on the shore will not suffice in the nights of dark- 
ness and storm ; no more will single Christians, mostly poor, and of necessity secu- 
lar in their pursuits, scattered through the West, effect that which requires to be 



90 RE3IINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

done by a combination of influence. If Christians, then, would unite to this end 
"the solitary place shall be glad for them," and the report would go out through 
the land, "there are the profits of godliness and conquests for Christ." 

There are social and material bearings of this question, which deserve a brief 
mention. We are made for society; society is not "got up to order," like a mili- 
tary company for an emergency. But persons with a common aim, of the same 
faith, and with a free will, embarking together, will find a variety of pleasing cor- 
respondence in a new home, where all are called to the same trials, and inspired 
with kindred hopes. We remember the glowing countenances of our fathers, 
rehearsing the story of days when, with a brother's spirit, they laid the founda- 
tions which are now justly their children's pride and joy. The trials we need not 
know in full, boi-ne, as we may be, by steam to the prairies, long smiling with invi- 
tations for the stranger ; but enough remains of toil and devotion to the genera- 
tions that come after, to perpetuate friendship through prospered years to old age. 
Const7'ucting a social and religious habit, and not complaining over that which 
cannot be remedied, is the proper employment, and contributes to real affinity, hap- 
piness and strength of character. 

The economies of this question are evident. Where there are numbers, the 
pecuniary burdens of the Church and school are divided, and every valued institu- 
tion rendered really more valuable. Lands adjacent to the Cliristian colonies are 
held in the market at a much higher price than those in the vicinity of a medley 
class of people. 

A number of families in one company may purchase merchandise and mate- 
rials for house-building at much lower rates than the immigrant alone ; and public 
spirit, in the laying-out of grounds, and in ornamental culture, will affect, at a lit- 
tle expense, that which individual enterprise could not achieve. 

Persons with a common interest, settled by the stream of water, or near a coal- 
bed, can, with economy, establish those factories which every consideration of 
political economy requires in the West. The farmers, uniting their funds, can 
purchase patent reapers and mowers, and other great labor-saving inventions of 
this age, yet beyond the reach of the isolated farmers. Stock and wool-growers, at 
a small cost to each, can secure the best bloods, and such advantages from their 
introduction as are now only known in a few wealthy localities. 

We forbear to enumerate advantages further. If it be said that some may 
leave the company, we answer, their vacancy will invite (/oocl rather than bad 
men. If failures are in memory, the answer is, not on virgin soil, in a free state, 

in this day of railroads. 

J. B. G. 

HOW CAME THE LOCATION ? 

A slave state — Missouri — I hinted at, as we had an estate 
there of 640 acres. That cooled the ardor of correspondents. 
One wrote that he proposed to keep his sentiments but " learn his 
trade without prison stripes on him." The decision not to go to 
Missouri came in this way : I had made proposals for a land pur- 
chase forty miles west of Hannibal and had friendly answers, and 
a welcome from slave owners, provided I "did not meddle with 
their property." I shook hands with a gallant colonel over what 
I now see was a deep chasm as we parted ; for this colonel, after- 



BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 91 

ward an M. C, was soon found presiding at a pro-slavery meeting, 
witii resolves that only people embracing sentiments loyal to slav- 
ery were to be tolerated. That I read on reaching New York, and 
it made my land worthless as a home, and ended all talk of 
Missouri. 

There was then, in 1853, no railway as far west as the Missis- 
sippi River, and, leaving the stage going east, at Sheffield, 111., for 
the railway coach, I was confronted with a brace of wordy slave 
hunters, or their kin, cursing the North as made up of cowards 
and nigger thieves. I kept silence until I was challenged as to 
my sentiments, and I then hinted I was in a free State, where the 
law relating to gentlemen was observed. 

Threats, oaths and drawn pistols were in the order of use, and 
if a Yankee I was advised to drop off at the next station. I can- 
not tell all that passed in debate, up to the time the conductor in 
fear went forward to give the alarm that a passenger's life was 
threatened. A venerable, fine-looking gentleman came in, who 
proved to be the builder of the E,ock Island road, Henry Farnam, 
the late deceased philanthropist and millionaire of New Haven, 
Conn. He was shocked at the gross profanity, and alarmed for 
my safety in presence of desperadoes armed in defiance ; yet they 
left the train at La Salle, fearful of arrest, which Mr. Farnam 
had ordered by wire. 

This meeting began a warm friendship, Avith compliments 
received on "standing my ground", and with advice ^not to think 
of settling in Missouri, where you would not be allowed to live a 
month. "Go to Iowa," said he, "a free State, which I have just 
come from; and I am to build a railway across to the Missouri 
River, an extension of the Rock Island Road." 

I answered, "I do not know a man in that State, nor have I an 
idea where to go." 

"But you know Dr. Leonard Bacon; his son, just out of col- 
lege, is one of my Iowa engineers, and he can and will, under my 
direction, tell you all you want to know." 

I accepted his kind offer, which was that I should have infor- 
mation as to the preliminary survey of the country, with only a 
request that I would keep the facts from the public. 

Thereupon Bacon wrote fully in several letters, and with the 
clear opinion, summed iip after reaching Council Bluffs, that in the 
western part the land was too rolling, and in the eastern portion 



92 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

the best lands were taken np. Town eighty, Range sixteen west, 
near Lattimer's Grove, offered the best choice of all — a well 
watered prairie ; and the topography of the country, in opinion of 
the engineers, indicated the line of a north and south road, if there 
should ever be one, and a Junction station at section sixteen, on a 
natural grade between the Iowa and Des Moines Rivers. He 
added, "Lose no time, for there will be a rush for land and the 
best will be taken — the boys mean to take it up." 

Here I would not suppress the names of Mr. P. A. Dey, for 
years our State Railway Commissioner, and Gen. G. M. Dodge, 
financier, and since Major-General and a great character in our 
Civil War, who were Mr. Farnam's locating engineers ; and their 
judgment I gained indirectly through Mr. Bacon, whose independ- 
ence, with lack of caution, came near costing the ambitious yovith 
his life. 

A PIONEER INCIDENT. 

It was in this way : Bacon thought that on the vast, untracked 
prairie he could shorten his way to the camp, one bitter cold 
night, and became lost on his return. The whole engineering 
force went out on a hunt for the young flagman. At break of day 
an object was seen just moving, which proved to be Bacon, hob- 
bling with a cane, numb and frozen, who, when hearing a distant 
call, fell as if .dead. That episode came near ending his life; and 
Dr. Bacon, glad of the rescue of his son, said to me afterward, " I 
feared for him, a frail, college boy, just what happened, a narrow 
escape." A letter from the boy was brought out and read with 
deep emotion — I recall the first laconic sentences. Dr. Bacon 
reading: "Dear Father: I have seen the elephant with the kiver 
oif." Then followed a recital as to the night tramp, frozen feet, 
etc. Mr. Bacon closed his engineering and married a daughter of 
Gov. Selden of Rochester, N. Y., where he is in the practice of the 
legal profession. I have seen him but once since then, when we 
met as delegates at the National Liberal Convention in 1872. 

One Monday, after receiving the final letter urging haste, I set 
out for Iowa and collected at Chicago a few friends of my enter- 
prise, spending Sunday in Davenport, speaking in church, and the 
next day taking a private hack for Sugar Grove, one hundred and 
twenty miles west, tlius beginning the first novel trip of discovery. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 93 

I studied to seek information by questions on the way: "Well, my 
friend," said I, "where do you live, may a stranger ask?" Leis- 
urely he drawled out — "Live nowhere — I am like a stray dog, 
without a home or a master." 

Many times I have thought it a most original picture of a 
tramp of later days. 

" Please, sir, where can we stop to-night ? " I was answered, 
" At Sourwines I allow, or Danskin's I reckon. Young Sickafoose, 
mighty clever — or old Frizzle will set out the whiskey!" That 
was border talk. Such a string of names wanting in euphony, I 
do not since recall ; they were real and I never heard of a court 
application for a change. 

Lattimer's Grove was reached across a twenty-mile prairie 
where there was only one house. We took dinner and set out for 
the flag, four miles away, at the railway summit, beautiful in 
topography. The black, burnt grass and chill March wind, with 
not a stone or shrub near, were devoid of attraction. I just dis- 
cerned the tops of trees north four miles, which the engineer said 
was only brush. 

Then to find shelter for the night we struck for Evan's Grove, 
spoken of as distant four miles, where there was said to be a 
cabin. 

Gulches were encountered; a few stars were studied to guide 
us ; we were several times lost, and only late at night we heard a 
dog bark, which proved to be a watchful canine resisting our 
entrance to the cabin. The engineer made a plea to stop over 
night, and the shout was, " No ! No ! " 

Dr. Holyoke tried his hand and retreated under flashing eyes. 
Mr. Hamlin, really sick, tried if he might move to pity. ''No 
room — man gone — girl frightened- — ^ nothing to eat." 

It was dark, cold, and, being the author of our calamity, I said, 
" We would stay if we had to kill the dog ; and if the woman had 
fits, the doctor could bring her out." I went in and boldly took a 
seat, asking no place to sleep or anything to eat, but saying we 
must stay or freeze ; if you take us to be robbers or thieves, take 
this purse of gold from gentlemen." It meant a pledge to pay in 
advance. I saw relenting — a glance of pity, and heard a low 
whisper in the corner, "They don't look bad," and the woman said 
with some doubt, " You can stay." 

The next day as the season was late and cold, the party was 



94 EEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

discouraged from going much further ; hut I resolved to see and 
know for myself. By a fortunate persistence I found the novelty 
of an Indian wigwam, just vacated, in view of a group of deer rest- 
ing on the hill-sides, and acres of majestic oaks, bordering on Bear 
Creek, several miles north of our present city. This, the first 
entry of land which I made, was of great value, and became a part 
of a gift of two hundred acres to my children many years later. 

THE HOUR OF DECISION. 

In the morning there was a council near the red railway 
flag on the summit of the road, and agreement as to a location 
was found impossible. These were the objections. This summit 
embraces the school section, which Ave cannot buy ; there is a want 
of timber; and, in the view of Dr. Holyoke from Maine, Iowa 
County offered a location near the Iowa River with timber and the 
possibility of a county-seat. Mr. Hamlin pictured Des Moines as 
the possible future capital and place for profitable investment, and 
plead to wait. My mind was made up as to the value of this loca- 
tion, and I said I thought little of county-seats, and had no taste for 
city -lot speculation. Being the driver, I said, "Who goes East?" 
They remained reluctantly, and I struck for the Land Office at 
Iowa City, sixty-five miles away, which I reached at sunset. The 
Land Office officials were hunted up, and I closed save as to details 
the entry of some five thousand acres of land before Sunday, sug- 
gesting to the receiver, Mr. Gilman Folsom, that I had engaged to 
preach in the Presbyterian Church in the morning and asked to be 
excused as Sunday was near. Mr. Folsom responded Avith an oath, 
" I have not been to church for years, but you will find me in the 
Amen corner if you are to preach." True to his word, he was pres- 
ent and created a sensation by a stride down the church aisle, 
with a Avild air and unkempt locks, to annoy the speaker not a lit- 
tle, by a conspicuous nodding of assent during the sermon. This 
episode and the merriment created Avere apologized for by Chief 
Justice George Green at the Hotel, Avho said that Folsom Avas 
esteemed a man of great brilliancy, but convivial habits might be 
his ruin. 

Thus we Avere never a Colony but iu name. I made the land 
entries in my own name and took the risks, yet on return treated 
those I wanted and had invited Avith equity. Some, later, bought 
land in their OAvn name. I asked of the late arrivals, on the 




MR. GRINNELL'S pioneer LOG CABIN HOME. 

fFroyn an old sketch.) 



I 



BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 95 

transfer of land at cost, a pledge of money for our Literary Treas- 
ury. In my plan for taking up some 20,000 acres I was thwarted 
by my New York agent, who failed to purchase the Virginia land 
scrip, because it had gone up a few cents an acre after I left ; he 
most stupidly wrote to me to know if "he should fill the order". 
It was then too late for the purpose, as on my location the land 
contiguous was at once taken up, and the great scheme was 
frustrated. 

Mr. i'arnum, of whom I have spoken, pleased with my choice, 

gave me courage by railway passes, and said he should counsel his 

sister and the Parks family of New York to be my neighbors, as 

they soon were. I received a complimentary check from him of a 

j, few hundred dollars three years after, Avhen dollars covered the 

;[ orb of a cart wheel, for attending and speaking on his behalf at a 

railroad meeting at Oskaloosa. I also was by him made a 

, Director in his Iowa extension of the Kock I'feland Railroad, which 

; office I held for several years. On our memorable tornado calam- 

I ity he sent a large sum of money to the poor, and gave a thousand 

j dollars toward our new college buildings. 

I When new surveys and intrigue threatened to change the line 

I of the railway, he stood by me personally in Avords too compli- 
I mentary for repetition, but not in too high praise of the people. 
{ Indeed, he was more than an incident in my unmerited good for- 
I tune, which I should be ungrateful not to acknowledge. His liber- 
I ality in New Haven gives him great material fame. Personal 
favors will leave forever with me the impressions of a generous, 
noble gentleman, a wit, a Christian, the charm of any circle fortu- 
nate in his company. A. most entertaining memoir has been writ- 
ten by his son, Professor Farnum of Yale College. 

The critical epoch in our affairs was on my return from New 
York, in May. The new cabin was built, but I was strongly 
tempted by a large offer to part with the land; my throat was 
improved, the lioarseness lessened. New York friends had pro- 
posed witli my aid to start a new Congregational Church by a 
removal to the fashionable Murray Hill. I have had good fortune 
in Iowa; New York is a possible maelstrom. 

A LEGAL DISCOVERY. 

George H. Norris of Illinois had bought the most desirable 
land, where West Grinnell now stands : and there was but one 



96 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

opinion, that the school section, sixteen, could only be had at a 
regular sale and advertised ; such was the judgment of Mr. Barnes, 
School Fund Commissioner. On a rainy day, looking up law 
points, I found a statute which allowed pre-emption of school land 
as under the old territorial law. The discovery I kept to myself 
until we could, by the letter of the law, begin as pre-emptors on 
the four quarter sections, and ask for an appraisal. Thereupon 
we crossed some poles and laid down a few boards for a camp on a 
chilly night, H. Hamlin on one, H. M. Hamilton and Dr. Holyoke J 
on the others, and I by right of discovery slept on the north-west ' 
quarter, where nature had predetermined the railway station, 
there being a steep grade either way for miles. 

Armed with affidavits according to law, Mr. Hamilton and 
myself found Mr. Barnes, the School Officer, who was surprised to 
read the law, but, long hesitating, made out an order for an 
appraisal; and, on the 'return of Squire Pierce, we gained the land 
for less than $2.00 an acre, for which as a town site I could have 
taken from a land syndicate many thousand dollars. Then came 
the new Plot, and my clear gift to the proposed university, after 
expenses of all kinds, as will be found in the recorded Genesis of 
our city — one hundred and sixty acres, divided into three hun- 
dred and forty-eight lots (not including the park) dedicated to the 
public. Next come the details of settlement. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Prohibition of Saloons — Piojieering Incidents — Rattlesnake Ser- 
mo7i — Our Mail Service — First Law Suit — The Lo7ig Home — 
Foibles of an Enthusiast — First Fourth of July — First Ceme- 
tery Burial — A Bell on the Prairie — The Church. 

That the writer was an enthusiast, devoid of worldly-wise phi- 
losophy, was a common saying. He certainly did not choose the 
wisdom of returning to New York with great profits as a shrewd 
speculator. 

It must be a confirmed fanatic, they said, that made, on sale of 
lots, a proviso against a saloon, namely, a reversion of the land to 
the maker of the deed, by the sale of strong drinks on a lot. The 
taunt was common, "You have laid out a one-horse town, but I 
will give three prices without the whisky proviso." Then judges, 
called very wise, caviled that " inhibition will not stand in law ". 
I was immovable and confident that I had a right to make a sale 
with conditions not opposed to public policy and morals. Then a 
gift, virtually to trustees of education, made a stronger case. The 
sequel is well known. The supreme court of the United States 
decided a case arising in Greeley, Colorado, which made my heresy 
sound in morals and finance — even good law. 

It was the knowledge of a young city without a saloon, which 
attracted eminently a class who are the best elements of society. 
They enhanced the value of property, while holding up more than 
a rush-light in darkness, where, in all the region, whiskey was 
plenty at twenty cents a gallon. We were a target for the sharp 
practice of a brood of revilers, up to the year of demonstration 
that we were not a "'one horse city", but could support a college, 
and lead the way for a decisive prohibition majority in framing a 
state policy. Our radical plumes were honestly won, and are now 
proudly worn as the trophies of pioneers with conviction and 



98 MEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

THE CABIN. 

Look at that shanty. It provokes a "twice-told tale". Profes- 
sioual, educated gentlemen asleep on poles, covered with slats and 
straw ticks. A Nimrod bringing game, and the merchant a cook, 
as well as retailer of goods for the grove men. Food was never 
better relished, nor repose sweeter. We lived in anticipation of 
spring, the singing of birds, and removal to the prairie summit, 
where, without the fame of Romulus, or modern founders, we were 
to have home, city, school, church, and all accessible good with 
very little ready whiskey. 

The house of Perry Matteson, Esq., near the grove where he 
now resides, was the rendezvous of the pioneer party until the 
erection of the first house-shelter, which was located in the grove 
near Sugar Creek. This deserves to be particularly noticed — an 
artist and an engineer, Mr. C. W. Irish, of Iowa City, having 
drawn it in correct outline, which is still preserved, as the home of 
the real spirits of an embryo town, preparatory to their removal to 
the noted house on the prairie called the ''long home", which will 
be hereafter noticed. 

Tliis first cabin was built of dead logs which Hamlin chopped, 
Hamilton drew with oxen, and Dr. Holyoke as chief architect 
hewed into place ; Griswold drawing the lumber for covering from 
a water-mill east of the present Brooklyn, of this count}^ Its 
dimensions were about fourteen by sixteen feet, and it served as 
cook-room, dining-room, land-office, hotel and sleeping-room for ten 
or twelve persons, the bed frames supported in tiers by pins, which 
were driven into the logs and covered by painfully gaunt straw 
beds. Amos Bixby, Esq., and Sumner Bixby, from Maine, Henry 
Lawrence, from Milan, Ohio, and A. F. Gillett, late of Western 
Eeserve College, were soon added to the company. The next 
necessity was lumber, and a horse saw-mill Avas secured, which was 
set near by, on the land now owned by Mr. Marvin. This rude 
mill sawed out near 100,000 feet of lumber, owned by Mr. McDan- 
iels. I Avas at this time acting commissary, and at Burlington, 
Iowa, bought the first bill of goods ever brought to the town, of 
Hon. W. F. Colbaugh, later President of the Union National Bank 
of Chicago, having been introduced by Geo. F. Magoun, late Presi- 
dent of Iowa College. The full and heavy load was wagoned home 
by the purchaser and welcomed with a shout. It consisted of 



BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 99 

sugar, coffee, saleratus, crackers, cheese and a choice assortment of 
fruits and delicacies. The truth of history requires the admission 
that several kinds of tobacco figured conspicuously, which the 
natives in seeming agony often inquired for, and the thought was 
indulged that the previous settlers in the 'timber', known as 
Hoosiers, might be innocently propitiated, they being quite suspi- 
cious of the Yankees. 

A store-room was extemporized with rough boards under the 
eaves of the cabin, and Lawrence, who was a graduated merchant, 
took charge. Hungry swine, cattle and roving dogs were an 
annoyance, frequently unroofing the store in attempts at appeasing 
their hunger ; but Lawrence would give them credit, voracious as 
they were, for never disturbing even a paper or plug of tobacco. 

The horse saw-mill in place, with a buzz and ring, was sweeter 
than parlor music ; violets peeped out gaudily under the leaves ; • 
and whip-poor-wils and all the grove songsters allured us to tarry ; 
but we were for the "Unshorn Garden". What a doleful pros- 
pect ! — to be smitten by the sun in the day, and swept by gales in 
the winter, which none of us, tender feet, had endured. Would it 
close out the Yankee settlement ? Let us see. Food we had, and 
the next want was shelter ; and this was 

THE LONG HOME. 

This edifice was not honored by a picture, not even the product 
of an architect ; but it shall have a chronicler. It was called the 
longhouse, hulk, ark, prairie canal-boat, Grinnell's Tavern. It 
stood in what is now Broad Street, between the residence of D. 0. 
Harris and that of Professor Edson. In dimensions it was sixteen 
feet wide and eighty long. It was constructed of green lumber, 
sawed by horse-power, the boards bent with a supposable curve to 
shed the rain ; yet it was only an illusion of protection in driving 
storms. This was a rude necessity, for there was no house or 
shelter within three miles, and eastern women and children were 
not used to the " prairie schooners " (only canvas-covered wagons) 
suited to the necessities of adventurous land-hunters. 

In it were stored household goods, and temporary beds were 
made for the night. It soon became a land office, hotel, hospital, 
and council-room for rainy days and Sunday meetings. In it the 
land hunter, the traveler, the sportsman and families had a wel- 



100 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEAES. 

come according to pre-empting right and free occupation. It was a 
fine summer resort for the occasion, when in the corners of the 
building we made the men with their wives privileged occupants, 
curtained off, and the sleepers for the niglit were arranged, their 
feet nearly touching, with a narrow alley between, on either side 
of which could be counted as high as forty persons in calm repose 
with all the musical variations of a sonorous company. The hot 
sun soon warped the roof and shrunk the green lumber, so that 
the rains dripped freely and the autumn winds whistled through 
the sides. One by one people vacated it, till it was left as a black- 
smith shop at one end and a horse stable at the other, the rest free 
for occupation by those who had no home elsewhere. It was the 
witness of good preaching, sweet singing, devout prayer, and the | 
most social convocations of well-bred people, who deemed them- 
selves "out of sight of land" — land everyAvhere Avithout an 
inhabitant. This Avas my first building and I remember the mice 
peeping through the cracks in the floor (a diversion to youngsters I 
Sunday), and that good appetite, with the clatter of dishes and the J 
music of knives and forks, was followed by sound digestion. The 
vacating of the building was like a departure from an old home. 
Then a store was improvised of green lumber, sixteen by tAventy- 
four feet, for Mr. Anor Scott, the first merchant, with a room 
above for lodgers. The display beloAv of goods Avas equal to the 
occasion. There we held meetings on Sundays. 

Then occurred the rattlesnake episode. The building was 
boarded tight to the ground to prevent a hiding-place for vermin, 
sequestered retreats for dogs and resort for snakes. One Sunday 
morning the earliest visitor Avas a large, yellow rattlesnake, dis- 
covered coiled in front of the door, from Avhich one of the ladies 
ran in terror. I happened to be near, and, having a taste for a 
safe study of natural history, prevented the dispatch of the snake 
and teased it Avith a stick at a safe distance. The first thing I 
learned was that it Avas blind, it being August ; that, as I found on 
later study, was the normal condition of the reptile at that season. 
On being touched, it would make an unmusical buzz with its seven 
rattles and strike out half its length. On further provocation it 
would bite itself, and quickly be swollen where the fangs had 
entered. The bystanders incurred little danger because the reptile 
could not see its tormentors. So we studied the buzzing reptile 
until the last church bell rang, and one of the travelers remarked 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 101 

they had come to hear a sermon and not to a snake-killing, and 
dispatched him, leaving in sight his extremity still waving and 
buzzing, perhaps until after sundown, as tradition says. His 
snakeship having been a revelation to many as well as a terror, I 
was moved, as the most conspicuous actor, to improve the occasion 
in the sermon. 

The following report, with sundry variations, found its way 
into the newspapers. The text was, " Now the serpent was more 
subtle than any beast of the field." The points made were : The 
first appearance of Satan in the form of a serpent, not keeping his 
place in the jungle, but confronting the woman as her tempter. 
This one confronted us in the sunlight on a Sunday morning. 
This one was blinded, and poisoned by his own virus. He 
attacked himself when he could harm no one else. That is the 
Satan of old and of to-day. The instinct of destruction to our foe 
survives the fall ; it was meted out to Satan, his prototype. Learn 
of the reptile to be warned of a more insidious enemy. Beware 
of 'snakes in boots', for the devil strikes before, not after an 
alarm rattle. He charms the bird that becomes his prey. It has 
a siren song that it is death to hear. Resisted, Satan retreats, 
and, with the venom of Milton's archangel, poisons and lacerates 
himself to be fitted for the accomplished fiends' abode. Your 
whiskey may be an antidote to the reptile's bite, but it is evil 
destroying itself in another form. Only grace can avail to destroy 
the virus which sin injects by the fang of the great destroyer. 

OUR MAIL SERVICE. 

We begin to make history under the unlucky star of Franklin 
Pierce, a Democratic administration. Why should abolitionists 
have a post-office ? Not one of our number had principles on the 
market, and an imported partisan became our servant under the 
law of demand and supply. I had obtained a legal mail route, but 
that was only a myth without stage service, which was only 
secured after a gift of lots was made to the not over-virtuous com- 
pany stage-agent, embracing a plat of ground on which is built Mr. 
Christian's residence, and that of Mr. Rawson. 

For months we were four miles from Sugar Grove post-office, 
a most irritating neglect and partisan punishment, yet it was a 
test of loyalty and decisive principles that, years after, a posted 



102 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

speaker not only failed to have a partisan meeting, but reported 
tliat for liis evening diversion he could not here find Democrats 
enough to play a game of euchre. 

Mail arrivals and departures were regulated by uncertain 
chance and public charity. Capacious pockets were at first used, 
then handkerchiefs, and when government allowed a locked mail 
sack it was regarded as special lenity to a people not loyal to 
slavery. The safety of money in letters by mail was about equal 
to the certainties of law or medicine, and on one occasion a large 
draft came near being a loss to the mail carrier. John B. Wood- 
ward, as post-rider for the day, on opening his private mail, found 
a large remittance, and on the way it was with other packages 
jostled from his pocket, but the loss was undiscovered until he 
reached home. Mortified by his carelessness, and returning in 
haste, he espied the swine in the grove tearing to pieces sundry 
newspapers, or with mouthfuls softening their nests, and, continu- 
ing his search for the valuable letter, at last found it in the jaws 
of a fleet and maternal porker, which he managed to run down and 
force to drop the prize, bringing it back exultingly, in a mutilated 
but negotiable condition — on which he was advised to explain in 
writing to the bank : " Snatched by an Abolitionist from the swine 
on account of this paternal pro-slavery government not giving us a 
Post Office." 

But there was a welcome mail with the first stage, bringing 
Captain Clark's family; and a cheer went up from a corner 
crowd. 

A LAW SUIT. 

To the honor of the first settlers, I can recall no suit where 
they were personally litigants. How much time and money was 
saved! Wliat an exemption from bitterness, cold-blooded social 
strategies, and flippant perjuries in mockery of oaths ! This did 
not come by chance, for there was a verbal compact that we would 
not promote a lawsuit. We avoided the scandal, among them- 
selves, but "offences came". Agents and stage drivers took more 
than a passing interest in the political contests of the day ; and it 
was then deemed safe to trample on the rights of citizens. It did 
not so prove in the case of Amos Bixby, Esq. The stage drivers 
thought it a better road to cross his fenced field, about where Dr. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 103 

Cravath now lives, than to pass tlie road by Rev. Mr. Eouse's land, 
now Eev. Mr. Brainard's farm; besides, they could make a shorter 
distance by the hypothenuse. Bixby protested and forbid, but the 
drivers reviled, showed their guns with warlike demonstration; 
and the exasperated owner, seeing his wheat destroyed by cattle, 
presented himself at the fence, which was thrown down as usual, 
and while the stage was passing through, Bixby drew his rifle, 
which sent a bullet to the heart of one of the lead horses, so far 
worn out that his sudden "taking off" was not a great pecuniary 
loss. A fresh horse was secured, but the fence and the field there- 
after were left inviolate. What should be done ? The great 
United States mail had been stopped, a horse had been shot ; and, 
inspired by a prejudice and accompanying whiskey, it was not 
hard to stir up indignation against the abolitionists. No such 
wanton act had been perpetrated, it was said, in the history of the 
state, and the stage company, and its friends, promised the 
offender a prison and the extreme penalty of the law. 

The day for the trial came, and Bixby waved all proof as to 
the identity of the one who shot. The trial was a most exciting 
one; E. W. Eastman, of Eldora, since Lieutenant-Governor, was 
defendant's council. But few witnesses were examined, yet a vast 
amount of law and precedents were read to the jury by the prose- 
cution. Bixby rose, and with earnest, thrilling speech, said: 
" Gentlemen of the jury : I am the guilty man, if there is one, I 
did the shooting ; and what would you farmers have done ? I am 
one of you; my growing wheat was the bread for my family, 
which the cattle let in were destroying. Had I not a right to my 
own land and crops which my own hard labor had fenced ? Then, 
gentlemen, the ruffians, on my own soil, raised a stake to strike me 
down and pointed a gun at me in a threat ; was I to endure this ? 
No ; I had no enmity toward the driver and would not harm him, 
and I chose the most effective plan of reaching the company to 
turn back the trespassers, by dropping an old horse about ready to 
die. My crop was saved by the best method of defense within my 
reach. I followed my convictions of right, and am ready to suffer 
if guilty of any wrong. Gentlemen, you, with the spirit of men, 
would have defended your property. I had no other certain rem- 
edy — I would do so again, and now am not afraid of your ver- 
dict." Judge Stone, since Governor, gave a favorable charge, 
asserting that the right to defend property, without malice, was 



104 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEAES. 

unquestioned; did this act in an emergency constitute a crime? 
Did not the trespass of the company invite violence ? 

The jury at once gave a verdict of not guilty, and the court- 
house rang with cheers while the prisoner was overwhelmed with 
congratulations. Thus ended an exciting trial, the first and the 
last of note in which the old settlers have had a part. Mr. Bixby 
and family, to the regret of all, settled several years since in Colo- 
rado, where he is an esteemed citizen. 

FOIBLES OF AN ENTHUSIAST. 

It is pleasant to recount what may be deemed extravagancies, 
in the broad plans for the founding of a model social fabric. It 
was a conviction that not only tree-planting for shelter and beauty 
should engage the pioneer, but that fruit should be sought at an 
early day, as it had been proven that apples of a rare quality could 
be grown on the Iowa prairies. Fruit trees we would have, and my 
first order in that line was for four bushels of apple seeds from 
New York. Before a return, a letter had been sent to a Post Mas- 
ter to learn who I was, and if crazy ? The answer came back 
"Safe to send the seed, but man a little crazy." This is the way I 
was out. I had the seeds frozen in sand, and then planted in a 
nursery, which made me ready to offer seedlings free to all neigh- 
bor passers-by, and for those of the class who prayed for daily 
bread and would accept that " only baked ", I gave the grafted seed- 
lings, having filled my cellar and found occupation for myself and 
expert during the winter. It was figured that the seeds would 
have made, grown into trees, orchards equal to an area of 100,000 
acres. They did not all make hardy trees, only a small fraction, 
but in later years I find an antidote to that derision in seeing trees 
laden with fruit, and accepting frequent invitations, as I passed, to 
eat freely of the fruit and take a basket home. I had the fame of 
an amateur fruit grower, and later wore the honors in securing an 
Iowa Gold Medal ('Mark' Miller, the active agent) from the 
National Agricultural Society, while President of the Horticultural 
Society whose work enlists my love and enthusiasm. 

A CRAB APPLE PURCHASE OF "WHAT A MAN HAD ". 

In Vermont it was a cellar of apples and cider, and thinking 
only of apples, forgetful of crabs as a variety, I made a huge pit 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 105 

for the winter, the fruit costing fifty cents a bushel. Tlie loads 
brought I cannot give, but they were as free as cider of old, and 
tliere was a drawback in the cost of reloading and carting out what 
would not survive the season. I never bought any more crabs, and 
only once besides " what a man had ", and that was in laying in 
pork hams for the winter. 

There was a rap after dark, and a challenge, " Will you buy 
some pork hams? First class, and I reckon you have not laid in 
your meat." "Yes, we have men and they are hungry- — how 
much a pound?" "Two cents." (It was in the fall of 1854.) 
"How many? I guess I will take what you have got." There 
proved to be a string of wagon loads, but the price was so low I 
said nothing about the quantity. The meat was deposited in Mr. 
Phelps' cellar, and the evening diversion for weeks was rubbing 
salt and sugar on the hams, and in daytime making visiting traders 
in the town welcome to ham. There was no virtue in this, for I 
became weary of the cost of handling, and on the approach of 
spring learned the best receipt for keeping hams in the summer 
was to eat them in the spring. But there was a fortunate stand- 
off to this hasty bargain — the names of those to whom I gave 
meat were not socially knoAvn to me, but one appeared later, a 
stranger, who rendered novel and actual service. Even a Bourbon 
Democrat advocated my election as State Senator in 1856. 

FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION IN 1854. 

It sprang from the germinal thought that between the bell and 
a new hoisted flag, tlie people, though with no tracks to guide save 
Indian trails, could tell where the city was to be. A three hun- 
dred mile trip to Chicago was made on behalf of the children of 
the country, for candies and lemons, also for powder, the cabin set- 
tlers furnishing chickens and bread. Dr. Sanford was an imported 
orator ; and, in regard to other utterances on the occasion, I do not 
recall such screams by our proud, mountain bird, nor soaring 
speeches that made a sweep earthward with so little fitting plum- 
age left for another patriotic occasion. This was a feast rounded 
and spiced with toasts, and responses from a lumber wagon, fol- 
lowed by songs, cheers and the rolling drum. Where had this 
crowd come from ? What their nativity ? This was learned by a 
call. Native Americanism then was popular, and a never-to-be-for- 



106 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

gotten incident must here be related which will illustrate the spirit 
of the times. A roll-call of states revealed the fact that more 
than twenty were represented, also Canada, England and Scotland. 
Ireland was called and there being no response, it was called again 
and again ; thereupon an ardent American answered, ^' There is not 
an Irishman within ten miles of here " ; upon which a still more 
ardent politician and Methodist brother jumped up and clapped 
his hands shouting, " Bless the Lord ! Bless the Lord ! " which, 
with ludicrous gesticulation, so convulsed the crowd that good 
order was not again restored. Not long after I visited my old 
home in New York City, and was an invited guest at an open 
speaking meeting of the Native American Order. I related the 
"Bless the Lord" response. So high was the feeling that they 
swung their hats, shouting, "By the gods, let us emigrate." Of 
course a vulgar prejudice, but it showed the spirit of the Order 
east and west. 

OUR CEMETERY AND THE FIRST BURIAL. 

In after years many may take a deep interest in the founding 
of our town, especially as the incidents are related to its character, 
and, I trust, its high future. 

We had many discussions as to the place for our dead. Prop- 
erty holders did not deem a near location to them desirable. 
Some wished an embowered grove selection, three miles away — 
others quite near on the main road. I favored the place now occu- 
pied, covered with a clump of hazel, off from the highway, 
abruptly rolling, and overlooking our projected city. Of course 
I had the opportunity of donating the ground, some thirteen acres, 
which I did, without conditions or reserve. Since its occupation, 
there has been but one opinion as to the beautiful locality, with a 
sunny slope, ravines made by water courses, and a natural adapta- 
tion for ornamentation which found a helpful hand and artistic 
brain in Hon. H. G. Little, to whom with J. G. Dodge, surveyor, 
and R. M. Kellogg and others, builders of the Lodge, we are 
greatly indebted. They are of a group who, with cultivated taste 
and sacrifice, are not to be forgotten. It is now backed by the 
town finances, and is in charge of the " Ladies' Cemetery Associa- 
tion", which gives promise of future care and further ornamenta- 
tion. It was twenty -five years before there was an enlargement, 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 107 

and that by the Order of Odd Fellows, who have joined a fine 
tract of ground at a cost of one hundred dollars an acre, and laid 
out according to a landscape-gardening plan by Professor H. W. 
Parker. There was no locality set apart as a reminder of negro 
slavery, nor a pauper's neglected corner ; may it be so, the rich and 
poor dwelling together, even as they may come forth, let us hope, 
in kindred immortality to recount a pleasurable life-journey. 

I witnessed the first burial on the plot, in 1856. It was that 
of Mrs. Jane Patterson, the mother of a large family ; her husband 
was a Scotch miner, living near the North-west grove. She was 
one of the charter members of the Congregational Church. She 
died suddenly at home with her family, and the whole community 
followed her to the burial. The lonely spot is associated with the 
rumored disturbance of the grave, but the suspicion was removed 
by proof that prowling wolves had disturbed the mound. They 
were trapped, and the incident kept in mind by their fur, which 
was worn by the adventurous hunters of the early day. 

Hundreds of funerals I have since attended there, but none 
were so solemn as the first, in the opening of the virgin breast of 
earth, and the vision of a home none of us seek, but must all ere 
long inhabit. I visit it to-day to read lessons nowhere else learned 
of change, decay, families dispersed ; there are the tributes of grief 
in cold marble, and, like the sable garments of the sorrowing, the 
swaying evergreens and moaning pines, even more sombre in win- 
ter, and suggestive in the eolian strains which the bleak winds 
ever inspire, but never to lull in forgetfulness for the dear ones 
who have charmed the households, and our companions who had 
feebly leaned on the staff of honored age. 

A CHURCH BELL. 

Since it was not at my expense I mention another foible, so 
called. A bell, when no church or people ! — yes, a real Meneley 
— G tone, weighing mounted a thousand pounds, and costing a few 
hundred dollars. It was a loud, wonder-voice to the pioneer grove 
residents, and I count it an investment by indirection, better than 
a wide spread of ink as an advertisement. It meant a church some 
day, and tolled out an invitation every Sunday before a building 
was erected. Gallants made journeys, with the inamoratas, to 
hear plainly what only feebly echoed through the grove. Mothers 



108 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

liuslied juvenile sobs and put a whole family on good beliavior, by 
promise that they should see and ring the Grinnell bell. So it 
stood a free toy and plaything for boys who would strike the bell 
tongue and stop their ears or run. It could not mean a fire-alarm, 
for there were no dry houses to burn, nor did it toll for a funeral, 
for a robust people were said to be too busy to die or think of it. 

The bell, for two years, until placed in the tower of the new 
school-house, had many good uses for the belated hunters or trav- 
elers on dark or foggy nights, its clear tones would give a course^ 
and it is said to have saved many from a chilly sleej) on the home- 
less prairie, and, on good authority, to have been the fortunate 
sound that rescued an eminent citizen from death in a blizzard. A 
country girl, some time after, when uniting with the Church, stated 
that she was lost with her companion on the way to a hotel dance, 
and she was kept not only from the dance but from a snowy 
shroud, by the bell which rang for the weekly prayer meeting. 

If this was only a legend it was the truth that the bell was the 
musical mentor of our time, ringing us up in the morning and an 
inviting signal to our beds. For tardy school boys there was no 
excuse ; and it struck the age of our dead, and tolled the funeral 
march to burial. Alas ! that so sweet-toned a friend was to be 
melted in the school-house fire after twenty years of service. It 
found mourners in several poetic effusions. From one by Eev. J. 
H. Kasson we quote two verses. 

THE OLD BELL. 

Farewell, farewell, 

O voiceless bell ! 
And art thou but a cindered mass, 
A shapeless thing of molton brass ? 
Why feel I yet thy power 
At flush of morn, or evening hour? 
Why steal those echoes soft and clear 
That linger on my ravished ear. 
As if thou still had'st power to stir 
My spirit from tliy sepulchre ? 
Thou art become historic now ! 
Thy glorious exit shall endow 
Thee with a lustre all thine own ; 
Others may ring with a deeper tone. 
But to our people thou art eldest born, 
A star in all the beauty of our morn ; 
For when the Fathers first these prairies trod 
Thou earnest like a messenger of God ; 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 109 

More precious, as the priceless boon 

Of him,* who sent to search the frozen zone 

For Franklin's fated band, his name, his place 

Among the benefactors of the race. 

Daughter of music ! on the Sabbath air 

Thy notes descended, like the soft refrain 

Of some angelic strain, 

Gently persuading to the House of Prayer, 

So like a voice of Love, 

No other bell 
Can make the heart with rapture swell 
Like thee, celestial Herald of Grinnell. 

THE CHURCH. 

The outgrowth of our Christian colony is the largest Protestant 
Church in the State, and the finest auditorium, befitting the cour- 
age and liberality of the members. It was not stimulated by 
rivalry or city adornment, but to attract and blend in Christian 
fellowship those otherwise strangers, on the prairie expanse. 
Early plans were broadened and adapted to growth, and to the 
laudable ambition of a people in love with the old ways. The 
memorial of their labors is here, a Church numbering more than 
eight hundred members, a Sabbath school of five hundred, and 
benevolence in correspondence with the excellence of an edifice of 
stone, costing, including organ and furniture, fifty thousand 
dollars. 

Who should write this history, in fidelity to the memory of a 
long list of fallen comrades and in honor of the living, but he who 
wrote the Church creed and was the first to sign it — the minister 
by voluntary unpaid service for years, who donated the site for the 
edifice and made a contribution of thousands of dollars toward its 
erection. This is the plain narrative. The first Congregational 
Church of Grinnell had its inception in the worship of eight per- 
sons in the log cabin of Perry Matteson, in the grove ; the second 
place of meeting, with a larger congregation, was in the shade of 
the native oaks, at Mr. Oakley's; then came a removal of the 
actors to the " Long Home ", which was a long, rough, board shanty, 
vocal with praise and prayer, while yet one end was opened to the 
storm. The next resort for service was Mr. Anor Scott's store, 
the goods removed from the counter, where men sat with feet sus- 
pended, and the centre of the room filled with chairs from houses 



* Henry Grinnell, of New York. 



110 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

and wagons — the minister making a barrel, surmounted by a can- 
dle-box, the pulpit. 

In the winter the upper part of the first hotel, a gaunt house, 
afforded fair quarters. Then there was a circuit of the houses, 
and a church organization in Mr. L. C. Phelps' parlor, composed of 
twenty members, of whom only six at present survive. 

What will be the best church location? It being chosen, it 
was donated; and, without a building, it would be worth now fif- 
teen or twenty thousand dollars. How could we have temporary 
quarters for Sabbath school, day school and church services ? By 
a subscription, and giving the contract to the lowest bidder. The 
minister, at a formal meeting, got the bid for a building, seated, 
eighteen by thirty feet, for less than $200. A deacon urged that it 
should be completed in a month or two. The contractor responded 
(it was Monday night) ''Next Sunday!" ''No! it is not possi- 
ble." The lumber was growing in the tree, only a horse-mill was 
near, and hardware sixty -five miles distant ; yet in a time of mud, 
and locomotion by stage at four miles an hour, the edifice was 
ready for the next Sunday service, and Avas dedicated by song and 
sermon. It was without the columns and arches of modern archi- 
tecture, and Avas innocent of paint or plane, — save the windows 
and cases imported — but it rendered good service for a crowded 
and thankful congregation, bringing equal elation Avith the occu- 
pancy, twenty-five years later, of the artistic stone church. There 
was no night so dark or storm so severe as to prevent a weekly 
prayer-meeting, until the warping, green boards let in the rain, 
even, as was said, moistening the sermon on the desk, " too much 
to be laid up in the barrel." 

The next church occupancy Avas the xipper room of the new 
school-house. This Avas a pretentious building forty feet square, 
and here was held the State Association of 1856, the room only 
lathed ready for plastering. 

There are tAvo mysteries : how the state ministers and dele- 
gates came to accept an invitation, and hoAv our people came to 
give it. The nearest railroad was sixty -five miles east; stages 
were crowded, and springless lumber wagons, offered for the occa- 
sion, furnished the best means of travel. These Avagons Avere free; 
but what a Aveary, unromantic trip for the visitors, society agents, 
and'venerable D. D.s, like Dr. Tappan of Maine, who preached the 
sermon. It was bravery and devotion. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. Ill 

AN INCIDENT. 

In the midst of the sermon there came up one of those fright- 
ful summer storms, with rain, thunder and lightning, which scat- 
tered the congregation, leaving only a score, all vexed with the 
persistency of the preacher who should, in the tumult, have cut 
short his message. 

'' No," said Dr. Tappan, '' I came fifteen hundred miles to give 
the sermon, and no rain or thunder, notliing short of a lightning 
stroke, was to stop me ! " The unrest of that hour to the audience 
when no one could or would hear, is still in memory. It was the 
first of four state meetings held in Grinnell, and none have been 
more welcome, even if every resident offered to sleep on the floor 
to give the guests a bed ; and the discomfort of a rude wagon ride 
was a painful necessity both to guest and host, so long before the 
pleasures of a Pullman car. 

The Grinnell church imparted cheer, asked no foreign aid, and 
stimulated pecuniarily the organization of churches within a radius 
of fifty miles, where then we had none. We helped not only 
in church councils, but gave cheerfully for the rearing of their 
edifices. 

If it is supposed that a great church sprang into being and was 
perpetuated in power on the virgin prairie, as an incident merely 
to emigration, no greater delusion could be indulged. There was 
manual toil and even sacrifice in making a church house. There 
was no money to pay the first minister had he demanded it ; and 
there came the free and able sermons, after two years, by S. L. 
Herrick, L. C. Kouse and Rev. Samuel Loomis, a young man of 
education and fine spirit, seeking health. At that time only strat- 
egy and firmness prevented the religious people from discussions 
and frictions which, in our weakness as to numbers, would have 
made the race and frictions of sects a burlesque before the world. 

The Catholics made their usual church purchase of land costing 
$1,000, but it was only after twenty-five years that our city peo- 
ple, on another location, gave for their church building. There are 
now strong Methodist and Baptist societies, which only a blind, 
religious zeal would have established earlier and for mutual harm. 
Ministers were met of all denominations and heard with a frater- 
nal spirit, but with decided convictions as to the impolicy of many 
churches, before there was occasion for more than one. There 



112 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

were Baptists, Methodists, three kinds of Presbyterians, yet a 
creed in the founding of our first church was so catholic that real 
Christians were at home in one assembly ; thus everything repel- 
lent was avoided, and a resort had to the best devices for cohesion 
on the basis of "unity in non-essentials". This was the spirit of 
the creed, and a departure from its catholicity would have been an 
offense. 

It was a very old school Pennsylvania Presbyterian, a chance 
supply and a speaker in Sunday school, praising the reprint of 
"the shorter catechism", and expounding it in the words of the 
New England primer, "In Adam's fall Ave sinned all"; then 
appealing for approval to me, I said, "I was not there — presume I 
should have sinned if I had been, but was not." He looked a Sun- 
day dagger at me.* 

Another ardent visiting minister said, " We must stand by our 
guns and have a church." The sequel of his appeal was, his little 
sect did not even come to sit and see him fire. His was a sample 
of the mission of zealots not confined to one sect. 

The Methodists, like the others, now prosper. Churches 
waited their time to find welcome and sympathy. Charles Allen, 
of Blue Point, a local preacher, on my invitation preached the first 
Methodist sermon. He was a good man, but his erudition is 
knoAvn by this incident. Motioning to me he said, " Please, 
brother, come up and read the hymm ; I cannot. You know down 
South there were not many schools for white or black, when I was 
young. You are a kind of Yankees, I see, that speak the Gospel 
as well as read it. We don't want any church now, but when 
you're full let there be a Methodist swarm" — and there was, 



*Our Congregational creed of 1883 was not tlien written : "Sin is the act of 
the creature alone." This relieved the old Adam, confusing if not hushing the 
discussions of the schools, old and new, which did not disturb me. I was perhaps 
rudely opposed to encouraging the organization of what would be a starveling 
church, in a community of. a few hundreds. Derisively, I held the room was not 
here, no more than for ague or milk sickness, which could be found further on ; 
and it was said that I " coaxed good men, wishing to start rival churches, to move 
on, by paying their stage fare" — all of which is too late for explanation or 
denial ; whether it was an act of pious strategy or of sectarianism is a question for 
others. In majorities I can rest with the belief that the day of Christian comity 
and regard for religious endeavor, unheedful of mere sectarianism, will have the 
approbation of all good men. In one rather typical western town not far from us, 
there were recently thirteen religious organizations, and but thirteen hundred 
inhabitants. 



BEIIINISCENCES OF FORTY YEABS. 113 

under good and able leaders, if not a swarm, a cliurch large and 
prosperous. There was a Seventh-day Baptist, sure to cliop on 
Sunday, who long carried a theological chip on his shoulder, wait- 
ing for discussion. We were too busy to find the time, and if 
there was chopping it came to be done quietly in the grove ; and 
later, by toleration, his opinion was, "Sunday is as good a day 
as any, and I will keep theirs, as they don't quarrel about 
mine." 

The so-called liberals from the east were numerous and strong 
at one period in our church history, but the policy of silence as to 
differences was a blow at negations. Not that the fundamental 
truths were suppressed, but debate and sharp criticisms were 
avoided. Tlius the tree of real toleration took root and its 
branches came to bear fruit, in church building and social fellow- 
ship, rather than in divisive congregations. It gave strength to 
the college, no less than to the church, whose founders had seen 
the poverty and losses by many sects and congregations, where 
true religion demanded but one, and one able to give substantial 
aid to surrounding settlements. 

AN EPISODE. 

It was at an early day, that an Englishman, a stammerer, pro- 
fane, and a grog-seller, accosted me for help that his large family 
and the neighborhood might have a summer Sabbath school. 
" Well, what do you want ? " " We have nothing but the people, no 
school-house or shade." I could give but one response to his unex- 
pected plea. ''We will get you some books to sing from and help 
you to get started," and the response was, " I will see that a 
bower is built, and get a good congregation." The books were 
sent, but there was a failure to attend by the parties who were to 
assist on the opening day. After long waiting, the projector of 
the school said, "The books are here, the whole country is here 
seated; now, what shall be done?" Another waiting. "Must we 
break up? What do you say?" The reply was, "No, hold on 
longer." After another pause : "I hate to give up. As I under- 
stand it, these Sabbath schools are opened with prayer. Let us 
not be dependent on Mr. Grinnell." The stammerer stood up, and 
called, with a motion to each in the circuit, commencing at the end 
seat, " Will you pray, sir ? " And so he passed along to every 



114 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

seat, receiving only a negative nod. "Well, that is too bad, no 
Christian here to pray, but we'll not give up. This Sabbath school 
shall be opened by prayer, if stammering Bob has to do it him- 
self." There was mingled surprise and merriment as he knelt 
down upon the grass to make his first audible prayer. Strange to 
say, the stammering tongue was loosened. He plead for the chil- 
dren, and for himself. It was the beginning of a new life. The 
prayer of the profane seemed to have been answered. The stam- 
merer became fluent, and, encouraged by a prosperous Sabbath 
school, there was a foundation laid for a church on the prairie near 
the spot where the bower Avas erected, and dedicated under the 
leadership of one who was no longer, as formerly, with a clogged 
tongue, in the practice of profanity and a dispenser of grog. 

Of the Grinnell Church, there have been three settled j^as- 
tors — Dr. Samuel D. Cochran, now of Normal, 111., Dr. W. W. 
Woodworth of Berlin, Conn., lately deceased, and Dr. J. M. Stur- 
tevant, of Galesburg, 111. They were happy and^ prosperous, giv- 
ing valuable service, yet none were wedded to the theory that a 
long pastorate is essential to the best interest and good of both 
parties. Dr. Cochran, once of Brooklyn, K. Y., later President of 
Thayer College, Missouri, is the author of an able theological work. 
Dr. Sturtevant, of Denver, late of Cleveland, 0., is a son of Pres- 
ident Sturtevant of Illinois College. Eev. H. M. Tenney, late of 
Cleveland, is now the devoted acting pastor. 

With the masses there was a single purpose never lost sight of 
in the dark days of war and the trying time of sacrifices in church 
building. The church of 1859 was in its erection a greater sacri- 
fice than the large, noble, gothic stone edifice of 1879. A pittance 
for the first salaried minister was gained by an extreme effort com- 
pared to the annual raising of f 2,000 for the last, and a larger 
sum now. 

Debts and contracts were made in faith without special knowl- 
edge. There was an abounding stream in varied charities, and the 
monthly missionary collection was never omitted. The leader, on 
one occasion, furnished an incident in point. Leaving the house, 
my wife said, "I have no money for the box — have you?" "Not 
a cent." "Well, there will have to be one failure." The same 
person in church said that for every good cause in some way there 
had so far been a provision, but to-night the rule for him must 
have an exception, for neither in the pocket nor in the family was 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 115 

there any money. He was about to sit down wlien the habit of 
placing the forefinger in the vest pocket, brought forth a discov- 
ery of a roll of bills, in amount far above the usual contribution, 
which was exhibited in surprise and amid great merriment. It 
was more than a telling incident, an appeal for that trust which 
has ever been with the Grinnell Church. 

It Avas a glad day, when from the old church, three times 
enlarged, there was the occupancy of the new stone church. 
There was a farewell service held in the old building. The follow- 
ing is an extract from the historical speech, reported in a news- 
paper at the time : 

THE HISTORIC CHURCH. 



Mr. Grinnell, called upon to speak on "what had been said in the old 
church," said: The eloquence of song in secular and sacred strains and lays who 
can measure ! To the choir must be added amateurs, professionals, old style and 
modern, including the renowned Hutchinsons, the family of John and Asa; 
Fessenden, Camilla Urso, Mendelssohn Quintette club, Phillip Phillips, and 
Queens of song without number. Poets, with the enchanting verse of H. W. 
Parker at sheep-shearing festival, J. G. Saxe with wit and pun, have stood here. 
Benjamin F. Taylor, poet and word painter, is remembered yet, and Bayard 
Taylor, deceased diplomat, not again shall repeat the Bedouin song — 

" From the desert I come to thee, 
On a stallion shod with fire ; 
And the winds are left behind, 
In the speed of my desire." 



I Readers of the American classics, with the versatility of Mrs. Potter, the his- 

I trionic recitations of Scott Siddons and the unequaled Prof. Churchill, have here 

\ bowed acknowledgements. Ladies of national fame — Mrs. Livermore, Lucy 

I Stone, Anna Dickinson, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and missionaries from many 

lands have by public addresses indicated a difference with the Apostle as to 

woman-speaking. Temperance advocates Vinton, Jessup and Francis Murphy 

have given counsel. Thomas Nast has drawn to the life and in cariacature on 

these walls. 

Apostle Moody preached his lay sermons here, and Robert Burdette, after con- 
I vulsing cities with his wit, has here plied us with unique manner and artistic 

1 speech. 
Speakers with more than national fame have won our hearts from this plat- 
I form: Frederic Douglas, the escaped slave and American prodigy; Henry 
j Vincent, of London, thrice has charmed us with great thoughts and dramatic 
J speech ; Vice-President Colfax has told his story of the martyr Lincoln ; Joseph 
] Cook, theologian, lecturer and author, here won the thinkers; Horace Greeley, 
the great editor and philanthropist — asking on his tombstone the modest in 
I memoriam — "The founder of the Neio York Tribune," is yet embalmed in mem- 
j ory; Wendel Phillips, the silver-tongued orator, matchless in diction and grace on 
■ every platform where truth was to be championed, was here thrice welcome; 
Henry Ward Beecher, the versatile literary genius of the century and great 



116 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 



preacher, talked of "hard times," of which he knew so little. Phillips, Beecher 
and Greeley will longest be remembered by the special trains which their fame 
chartered, packing this old ark, in the language of the time, like dried boxed her- 
ring, and bringing thousands of dollars to the treasury of the Young Ladies' Social, 
which has lighted, cushioned and carpeted the beautiful church house which we 
are eager to occupy ; and for these intellectual banquets we are indebted to the 
ladies of the Social Circle. 

Here the Iowa State Congregational Association has met, bringing hundreds 
of delegates and divines for deliberation and speech, and we have here listened to 
Dr. Swing, Secretary Alden, Secretary Clark, Drs. Goodell and Robbins, Ray 
Palmer, D. D., and others. 

Iowa College has drawn here presidents of Colleges — Sturtevant, Fairchild, 
Bascom, Thatcher, "Welch, Pickard and others — eloquent and profound. Seven- 
teen College Commencements have been held here — "great day for which all 
other days were made" to students with oratorical contests and graduation 
speeches and baccalaureates. 

Here politicians have been particularly at home. Most of our Supreme Judges 
in the state have spoken here. Every Governor elected for the last twenty-five 
years, and every member of Congress from this district, and our United States 
Senators have given us the benefit of their oratory and wisdom. The more than 
casual speakers I need not name. One now in advanced age fills Cowper's descrip- 
tion of the man of God — he is here. A faultless rhetoric in earnest manner indi- 
cates him I need not name, President and Preacher, Dr. Magoun. The pastors 
called from our service, Cochrane and Woodworth, logical, learned and devoted, 
on whose departure many cried in spirit, " The chariot of Israel and the horsemen 
thereof." They ploughed deep and sowed beside all waters in preparation for one 
with courage and adaptive skill, the excellencies of whom I am forbidden to men- 
tion by his presence. 

Patriotic captains have here addressed numerous war meetings, enlisting sol- 
diers never returning, and ministers of peace have found audience. Pathetic sto- 
ries of escaped slaves, and Mormonism exposed by a victim, with Woman's Rights 
logically taught, with the wronged taxed without a voice or ballot, have been wel- 
comed in variety. Of our dead whose sacred dust sleeps in our beautiful cemetery, 
I recall Missionary Grain, Rev. and Father Rouse, Cushman, eccentric and benev- 
olent, Hamlin one of our city founders, leaving secular toil for the sacred office, 
the devoted J. H. Kasson, minister, logician and poet. 

I see the flags unfurled at the head of military columns while drums are beat- 
ing ; I hear the shouts on the news of victories of our arms and sighs for the fallen 
brave. Nor would I obliterate the plighting of hearts at the marriage altar, the 
consolatory words when last looking on the face of the dead, or the solemn vows 
made to God and man in church covenant. 

Good-by, old church, whose walls have echoed the voiced wants of society for 
peace and culture, and the woes of a nation ! 

Farewell, with the loves of a child for the paternal roof. "We pass to yon 
beautiful walls to enjoy the ministeries and pure devices of modern art. Yet 
though the new may be spared for hundreds of years, so many of the notable of 
earth may never find audience as those in this old pioneer edifice. No cathe- 
dral with storied window casting "a dim, religious light," or modern Puritan 
church has evoked nobler deeds or inspired abler ministers. Removed this nnzst 
be, but not by vandal hands; rather let time's effacing fingers destroy this land- 
mark, Lyceum Hall, Lay College, our Prairie May Flower, for the education of 
the people, who have here learned of duty, and the wants of man and country, 
and the claims of God. 



CHAPTEE VIIL 

State Senator — Free School Law — Congressional Canvass — How 
I became a Laivyer. 

This practical chapter will be opened by a colloquy in 1856. 
An Eastern neighbor visited me as a guest. "Well," said he, 
" you are out of the old Eastern ruts, and I trust can rest happy in 
your possessions and prospects," The reply was, " Far from it, I 
am in the centre of a paradise of poor people. The soil in great 
tracts, is largely owned by non-residents, and sordid bachelors. 
The father of a large family has the burdens of educating, feeding 
and clothing, while the schools should be free, to add value to the 
land and make a model country. Please, my friend, do not flat- 
ter us witli the delusion that we can raise grain and feed the world 
with profit, so long as we have but fifty miles of railway in the 
state, and grain is worth nothing, hundreds of miles from where 
the consumer of our supplies lives. We must have sheep to raise 
wool, and factories by our coal fields, and water-power." The 
friend replies, "These are matters of time; you have good soil, and 
not the fight of your Kansas neighbors on hand. You will enlarge 
your school-houses, get railroads, and drink less whiskey, by and 
by." 

I said, " We can't keep out of the Kansas fight, and I am sick 
of the debauchery going on where cheap whiskey is freer than milk, 
and, despite the resolve to keep out of politics, I find myself in the 
whirl, and here is my platform: No Liquor Shops; Free School 
for Iowa; No Nationalizing of Slavery. In public or private, in 
youth and age, failure or not as a citizen, these will be planks on 
my political craft until we get from under the dark clouds of 
to-day." 

The New Yorker replies, "Very well, but is it not perfectly 
clear that your standard is too high for the frontier ? I want to 
see you senator from a gem of a city, but you array money, politi- 



118 BE3fINISCENCES OF FOTRY YEARS. 

cians, and all the power of the nation, with 'Old Buck' against 
you. ^ Wait." 

Nothing more is written as to' this visit than a remark, "We 
shall strike high, and win with an issue which we can carry in 
debate ; and, if our people are not ready, we can get a new railroad 
for coal, import sheep, set out trees, school the children at our uni- 
versity, and have self-respect at least while waiting for the 'good 
time coming'." 

It is with this spirit that the actor tells, in reminiscences as 
taken from the local press, of the road to an election as state sen- 
ator, member of congress, and his part in a free school law, beer 
exemption, John Brown's visit, and the live questions ante-bellum. 

The town well advancing, and novelties of pioneering recounted 
even to satiety, and Grinnell University more than projected, what 
next ? Here was Iowa inchoate, the rudiments of empire warm 
and ready for moulding, and a nation in the midst of heated dis- 
cussion, and on the eve of critical events related to territorial 
slavery-extension and to war. 

At a state convention of republicans in Iowa City, Avhere hund- 
reds met as strangers, there was a delicate task in harmonizing a 
temperance element, very decided; also in an accretion of the 
American recruits ("know nothings"), all to be moulded with the 
old whigs for an advancing column, to keep state control and a del- 
egation in Washington, up to our ideals of progress. The discus- 
sions were sharp and able, with a harmonious result securing the 
election of a free-soil state ticket, in the line of a political faith 
held in Iowa without waver or " shadow of turning " for more than 
thirty years. 

I was chosen to write the state address by a vote of the conven- 
tion. It was a delicate task, but I availed myself of the light shed 
by discussion and took up boldly the plain features of our national 
issue. Governor S. P. Chase of Ohio, sent me a letter in praise of 
my effort, too flattering for the public eye. We had many encour- 
agements from abroad as well as at home. Our state seemed 
about to repel Bourbon ideas as to freedom and education, under 
the guidance of leaders like Senator James Harlan and Governor 
Grimes. 

Frankly I was more than willing to be state senator from the 
four counties of the district, if I could stand on the three planks. 
The nomination and platform was accorded me, and I still deem 



BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 119 

my ambition honorable in presence of great issues ; as when, later, 
I aspired to go to Congress (not being accepted as a soldier) at the 
time the national honor and life were in peril by the treacheries of 
ambition and assaults of war. 

I was unanimously nominated for senator without a canvass; 
and Eeuben Michel, a lawyer-banker of Montezuma, was named 
by the democracy. Soon, according to the usages of the county, I 
challenged him to a debate. The preliminaries were settled. For- 
est Hoine, in my county, was the first place of meeting, which 
attracted the people in a circuit of many miles. It was my lot to 
open with an hour and close with a half hour, leaving Mr. Michel 
an hour and a half. The most that I now remember is an assault 
on his party for its hypocritical professions, now on its knees to 
the South, encouraging outlawry in Kansas, belying Jefferson in 
the state and Wesley in the church, who had pictured slavery in 
its true colors. Iowa democratic resolves I took up, asking, as I 
passed along, a vote on them, and the opinion of my opponent, 
which he was slow to give. I then held up the democratic whis- 
key law, fallen with dishonor in the streets ; public schools a bur- 
lesque ; old bachelors and great land holders exempt, while for the 
children of the poor there was a daily roll-call for taxation — a dis- 
grace to the age. I ended with bold questions to be answered, and 
a promise to do what I saw by their welcome I was to do as 
their senator. 

Mr. Michel was personally popular, mild in manner and knew 
how to play on prejudice and ask sympathy. He did not wish to 
deny, in fact did not understand my statements, had not read so as 
to answer my questions. For politics he had little taste and knew 
of few facts, but could learn. I saw at once his patronizing way, 
but he had blundered in a tilt at Yankees, " as good traders but 
never giving, yet liberal at public expense ". This was branded as 
a lie in a sharp retort from his coterie of professional friends, for 
I had the previous winter, as already narrated, given away in a 
very promiscuous manner the loads of pork hams, perhaps more 
easily disposed of than kept — an act trivial in itself, yet it was in 
outcome as bread " cast on the waters ". 

At the close I asked certain questions — among them — "Is 
not my competitor rather old to learn? He answers neither yes 
nor no. Whom will you prefer, one who knows and is ready to 
answer, or a candidate that don't know?" The shout went up, 



120 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

"Nary know nothing," etc. It was plain where the crowd stood 
after the fatal admissions of Mr. Michel ; yet he stood high per- 
sonally, and later he was the master-mason of the state, wealthy, 
but meeting reverses in mining, and drifting to the Pacific coast, 
where he was assassinated at sixty years of age. Not one of his 
many appointments in this campaign did he fill, but pushed out for 
the discussion an M. D., with less character and more tact than the 
would-be senator. The people were for free Kansas, and through 
the district it was held that lands should be taxed for schools, and 
the large bachelor land-holders made to pay for the general good, 
if not rushing into matrimony with a probable direct interest in 
free schools. 

Iowa at this date, 1856, had but one fourth its present popula- 
tion; only fifty-five miles existed of railway of our present eight 
thousand miles ; and no institutions fit for mention save a state 
prison (a necessity by free whiskey), and a place for Indian half- 
breeds at Port Madison. For all the charitable institutions now 
our pride, I was an advocate, especially in favor of the lunatic asy- 
lum at Mount Pleasant, held by the Bourbons to be large enough 
by the plan to ''house all the voters of Iowa"; yet it was soon 
full, and an early call made for two buildings in addition. I inau- 
gurated a free local town system of voting, as a step toward state 
free schools. The next winter after the removal of the Capitol to 
Des Moines under a constitutional provision, the question came up 
of a land appropriation by the general government for an agricul- 
tural college, for which I had the honor of being the first in the 
Senate to circulate a petition, resulting in the great institution at 
Ames, Iowa. 

The State University at Iowa City was treated with liberality, 
the legislature making me a regent, after service as chairman of 
the committee on schools and state university. It was no small 
task to bring to light, and save losses by the Dr. Eads' loan of the 
school fund. Next in importance to the election of Governor 
Grimes as United States Senator, was that of securing the passage 
of a state free school law. The Lieutenant-Governor, Oran 
"Faville, had been for long years a teacher and college professor 
East, and had made an educational canvass in a circuit from 
Mitchell county in the North. He wrote the following note on 
the issue before the committee of which I was made chairman: 
" My dear Governor Grimes : — You take so lively an interest in 



BE3II]SfISC'ENCES OF FOETY YEARS. 121 

the passage of this Free School Law that I wish you to advise me 
as to the chairmanship of the senate committee on schools and uni- 
versity." This was the reply, " Grinnell, of Poweshiek County, 
was elected on the school issue. He will take charge of the bill 
and knows no such word as fail." 

It did look like a failure. It was " Wait, correspond ; too high 
notions for a new state with log houses, mortgages and poor 
roads." Mine was a missionary work, holding back radical ideas 
to win by suasion those members Avho were jealous of Yankees. 
In a local storm centre I assented to elimination and revisals to 
avoid failure. 

It is due to the facts of history that I should give credit to the 
commissioners selected by Governor Grimes — Hon. Horace Mann, 
chancellor, Mr. Dean of New York, and Hon. Fred E. Bissell of 
Dubuque. These names should have been the potential argument, 
yet were decried as those of theorists, though it was true that our 
Iowa Mr. Bissell had given more attention to politics than the 
scheme of a board of education. To that law I gave my thoughts 
for weeks, and still think my most effective efforts in speech were 
made, as was said by Mr. Thaddeus Stevens many years later, " for 
children without voice or vote, and posterity beyond human enu- 
meration." My general neglect in small matters prevents a possi- 
ble infliction on the reader, of a speech, on which I laid myself out, 
and which, by a common assent, hushed the slurs of "the Hairy 
Nation" obstructives. Mr. Amos Dean was an eminent lawyer 
and a disciple of John A. Dix, the latter a noted general and gov- 
ernor. Mr. Dean used Iowa as a stepping-stone to a larger place 
in the affairs of New York, with a very common and human idea 
as to calls and collaterals at cross roads, for all of which he was 
far from blame and is worthy of a place in our educational annals. 

Horace Mann, ever since I was a country teacher, had been like 
a fixed star in the educational horizon. I first heard him at a 
state gathering in Utica, New York — pale, nervous, with a broad 
almost deformed brow in massiveness. The speech was fresh in 
every line, even electrical, as he painted ignorance in all its 
deformity. I next knew him in Washington, the successor of 
John Quincy Adams, too stern for a popular member, but an edu- 
cator by speeches, sent home to stay a retreat toward the castle of 
" Union Saviors " by profession, and the conservative worship of 
Mr. Webster after his 7th of March speech. 



122 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

For Congress as a bear garden there was intense disgust, yet in 
the parlor he had a chikl's simplicity, and no aversion to those 
games in Dr. Bailey's parlors which I have described. Was he 
not a pioneer in thought, a fearless champion of all good, reckless 
of idols dethroned on his march ? His correspondence was a great 
help in our school law discussion, for, while set in opinion, he was 
in minor matters pliable like willows bent by river currents in 
flood time. Mann was the equal of Webster in public service, save 
the senatorial. 

The State of Massachusetts placed his statue in bronze oppo- 
site that of the great expounder of the constitution, in front of the 
State House, and I take off my hat in the great presence, and hope 
that, like myself in devotion to a friend and counsellor, a cheer 
may leap from the heart of all lowans for so true and good a man. 

Leaving this tribute it is in line not to be forgotten that our 
Eree School Law became a notice to the world of rich Iowa on an 
educational march. Farms adjacent to school-houses rose rapidly 
in value. The childless were solicitous to take on incumbrances, 
to clothe and feed those whom the state was pledged to educate. 
Free to the poor as air and sunshine is education in Iowa. The 
friction under a new system, and the burdens of a state legislative 
board of education, brought about partial repeal, but the system 
has grown in favor, on amendment, until the fact of less illiteracy 
than any state in our Union is a proud statement, and one so well 
known as to be no longer mentioned as news — a fact cognate to a 
conservative maxim — a nation's wealth should educate its youth 
rudimentally for good citizenship. 

THE EARLY DAY. 

The city of Des Moines in 1858, with no such paper as the 
Iowa State Register, nor gas, water-works, fine church buildings, 
only chapels, and with the honors of a state capitol, had less than 
eight thousand people, over against its sixty thousand in 1890. 
All was rude, with stumps of trees, perilous ravines and walks 
made of coal slack. There were boarding-houses on streets indi- 
cated by a surveyor's stake, or by a path through mud of various 
consistency, according to the weather, in Avhich were planted and 
lost sundry odd overshoes without a suggestion of a search there- 
for. It is no legend that by lanterns and blazed trees we made 



BEMINlSCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 123 

our way at night near Capitol Square, then decked with a grove of 
second growth. The song, "Woodman spare that tree," did not 
prevent the chopping a sapling, to be shouldered by moonlight by 
residents short of fuel; and the hitching of horses by countrymen 
mutilated the trees to such a degree that, in one of the most practi- 
cal resolves of the session, I asked for "a plain, cheap, strong 
board fence" around the Capitol Square. Iron savored too much 
of extravagance to be mentioned, and we had not reached the lawn 
era and discarding of fences. 

DRINKING USAGES AND LEGISLATION. 

It was the spring of 1858, when by a hasty adjournment the 
Des Moines valley folks were able to return to their homes by a 
steamboat, the last of those exploits. This boat would not tarry 
for legislators, in fear of low water which might cause the steamer 
to be aground before night. The log-book of that craft did not dis- 
close all the perils by water, from failure in morally educating a 
pilot and a captian, said to be quite too full for duty. As I have 
learned, the officials were not singular in inebriation, for there was 
quite a return cargo in fluids. Here a confession should preface 
the records of facts. Most of the public men at that time drank 
beer. It was on the dinner table, and members called for it to 
treat friends without regard to time or ceremony. I drank it, 
soon overcoming an aversion to its bitter taste. The lager was not 
deemed intoxicating, but, with hop flavor, a welcome tonic. It 
was only by age and excessive use that effects were visible. These 
were drowsiness, then petulance reaching to blows, followed by the 
now called "beer face" and aldermanic corpulence. Members 
grew out of their suits, and became in love with beverages which 
prepared the way for decisive legislation. Native wine and beer 
were exempted from the provisions of the prohibitory liquor law. 
If, as said, my vote, long uncertain, legalized the home product, 
these facts must be my vindication. Of the common beer I had 
drank without harm, and had no knowledge of the lager which 
Senator Eeuch, a fine German citizen and scholar, assured me was 
not, when fresh, an intoxicant. Then, grape raising for wine was 
a promising industry, to furnish a substitute for whiskey without 
imbruting the user, if pure and used in moderation. It was the 
abuse under the law, and adulteration, which gave a refuge for the 



124 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

vilest drinks under cover of a beer saloon. This made a demand 
for strong stimulants, which soon exposed our relapse from a high 
standard, securing an affirmative vote for constitutional prohibi- 
tion in 1882. 

That is not all. The war cloud was gathering blackness, and, 
to keep the Union together, it was necessary to have all the free 
states in line for an emergency. Here we were met by the Ger- 
mans, protesting that they were made criminals by a harmless 
usage ; and the condition of their allegiance to the party of free- 
dom was an adoption of the wine and beer clause. The national 
cause loomed high, and Iowa must be kept in line, and it was duty 
to waive, for the time, a sentiment for a great principle like the 
nationality of freedom. Thus the millions of black men enslaved 
were set over against the freemen depraved by appetite. Again I 
turned a deaf ear to democrats, who appealed to my temperance 
standard as a bond that I would enhance their prospects of power 
by voting against repeal. No ! I took counsel of friends, and the 
call to duty with a good purpose, however great the mistake in the 
view of those not broadened to an exigency in the nation before 
unknown, and which may never have a parallel. 

That I was under ban for a time, on account of my vote, and 
incurred the hate of the whiskey party for not accepting their 
beverage, did not disturb me. Time proved that however great 
the frauds practiced under beer and wine exemptions, a united 
loyal party in Iowa was a desideratum linked to the fate of the 
Union. 

Senator Grimes would have secured for me on Mr. Lincoln's 
inauguration an honorable post abroad, but for this position I had 
no taste, and accepted an appointment as special agent of the Post 
Office department. It was a place of high trust, giving large con- 
trol in Chicago and supervision in Iowa and Minnesota, allowing 
brief periods at my home for writing and in care of business mat- 
ters. It was a congenial service, in the company of gentlemen, 
and of aid to localities as to increase of mail routes and lessening 
the purloining of money letters, sent to meet taxes in our new 
counties. Indirectly, I encouraged enlistments of volunteers, 
spoke at company departures and in churches, to fan the fires of 
patriotism too feebly burning in many localities. Home business 
was neglected; ploughed fields were left to weeds, and in Franklin 
county where I had laid out a town, there was only stagnation 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 125 

after every man fit for a soldier had gone, with a like decimation 
in the county. 

GOING TO CONGRESS. 

This was not an unworthy or vain ambition, and the candidacy 
was not a draft on energy or purse to a considerable degree — two 
dollars and forty cents was the cash outlay. I had no press as an 
organ, nor friends at the convention only as they came on their 
own charges, however they returned. 

About fifty ballots were required to make a nomination. 
Judge William M. Stone of Knoxville, an editor, coming to the lib- 
erals on the know-nothing wave and anti-slavery issue (since gov- 
ernor, and now holding a high official position), was ready for a sac- 
rifice on the nomination altar. Eush Clark, later M. C, years ago 
crossing to join the "pale nations", was speaker of the legislature, 
and by report had mapped out a district favorable to his aspira- 
tions and was a candidate on the list to stay. Attorney-General 
Samuel A. Rice, of Oskaloosa, readily enlisted his legal brothers, 
and was every way equipped to win that upon which, after due dil- 
igence in a well-cultivated field, he had set his heart. There only 
seemed wanting unity and a cordial support by the Mahaska dele- 
gation, in which was found the Quaker element, not willing to be 
counted before courted. Many a true man has lost by too much 
reserve in a crisis. The peacemakers of another day were pleased 
with nothing less than a candidate without caution in entertaining 
John Brown, and ready to face the issues. It was in vain that I 
urged my friends voting to change for Rice, a personal friend, and 
a reliable ardent patriot. The convention dispersed. I did not 
sleep until I had made a journey to Iowa City, and had secured a 
pledge from Gov. Kirkwood that my friend should be made Col- 
onel, as he was of the Thirty-third Infantry, doing fine service as an 
organizer, but receiving a wound in battle of which he died. He 
was early promoted a general ; and in mortuary service and remem- 
berance he was extolled as a citizen of great worth in peace, and a 
hero in war for the Union. 

Next in order, the candidate must challenge his opponent to 
discuss the issues. Mine was Henry M. Martyn of Marengo, a 
member of our legislature, with a fair democratic record, and a 
lawyer of repute, shrewd, and a popular orator. Douglass was his 



126 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

idol; and iimch did he inspire the voters to put down the rebell- 
ion by resolves, yet was chary in advice on enlistments, not yet 
certain whether the war was waged for the double purpose of abol- 
ishing slavery and perpetuating the republican party. McClellan 
was his ideal soldier, as he was my aversion. Fremont I more 
than tolerated in his order, while relegated to the family of fanat- 
ics by my opponent. 

The warning conditional proclamation of emancipation by Mr. 
Lincoln of the twenty-second of September, 1862, giving the insur- 
gents to the first of January for reflection and allegiance, was the 
signal for sharp debate, bringing fire from oratorical flint and 
steel. I advocated the arming of blacks, and predicted what came 
to break the shackles. We were crossing the country together in 
a carriage when a stage driver brought out a telegram with a 
message. It was to Mr. Marty n conviction as strong as proofs of 
Holy Writ that war Avas to enslave the South, and Lincoln had 
destroyed the Union. "All of which," said he, "assures my elec- 
tion." From that time on there was no lack of crowds, a sharp 
issue and cheers by excited partisans. 

His role as a candidate was to prevent enlistments in a " negro 
war", and restore the Union as it was. I plead that a man who 
could take as good sight under tufts of wool as under a crown of 
blonde, should spare our own race, while the black man could gain 
partial redress for injuries and make liberty and not slavery na- 
tional after January, 1863. The Fourth District had sent a larger 
number of soldiers into the field than any in the Union, save that 
embracing Chicago, and we both sought to secure the soldiers' vote, 
to be taken in camps by commissioners. Appeals to prejudice did 
not move those in camp, pining for action and an early close of the 
war, and I received about four-fifths of the whole number of votes, 
while of the home vote I lacked an election, but counting the 
soldier vote had fourteen hundred majority. Here appeared a 
travesty of loyalty to the soldiers by a denial of their right to 
vote, although Mr. Martyn as a legislator helped frame the Iowa 
law. It was a bitter contest up to the affirmative decision of its 
legality by the supreme court, and a contest in Congress which 
added nothing to the credit of my opponent, not even securing the 
salary of a contestant as by the latter usages. A favorable issue 
of the war placed under the ban one well endowed for public serv- 
ice, and for years, in the city of Davenport, a lawyer of good 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 127 

practice. By the casualty of a broken limb, near the Eocky 
Mountains, his life was ended, calling out many tributes to a gen- 
erous heart. 

In 1864 I was again nominated for Congress, and, without an 
effort, or a possible ground of contest like that before, my major- 
ity was six thousand votes. My opponent shall be nameless, for, 
however convivial in practice and disloyal in denouncing the war 
a failure, he rose to a high social plane of life as a Christian min- 
ister in another state, and recast his political creed, regretting both 
his infirmities and the evil of disloyol association. 

I lacked but a few votes of a third nomination, which was not 
sought, for I kept my place at the capitol that there might be no 
partiality to a contestant. Washington air I never liked, causing 
seasons of protracted illness ; and, the war over, with the constitu- 
tion amended, retiring brought rest and pleasant and profitable 
home and public occupation, of which I make full mention later. 
Politics alone can engage the ambitious only, except in a great 
formative and war crisis. Then there comes the reward, and the 
just pride in recounting one's part in framing laws that posterity 
commends, and giving authority to those who shall be their faith- 
ful executors. It was enough that I had seen the Congress of 
1850, with later ones, in the midst of the taunts and excesses in 
debate before traitors had executed their warlike threats, and the 
still later war Congress, under the rule of a party charged with 
duties in which I shared, and under leaders before held in aversion. 

It is an incident to this narration that I became enlisted as 
president in a railway north and south, to bring us coal and lum- 
ber ; and that the revulsion of 1857 brought a paralysis in busi- 
ness, and arrested railway building and public enterprise, while 
clouding with disastrous defeat most laudable schemes. The 
hard times in 1857 were a reality. I recall that on my journeys, 
with the owner of farms it was common to roast corn for dinner 
and pay the lady ten cents for seasoning, with use of dishes. 
Coffee gave way on our tables to a substitute made of rye, sweet- 
ened with sorghum. Sugar was a luxury, as was fine flour, when 
wheat brought the farmer but forty cents a bushel. Taxes were 
unpaid for years, drawing heavy penalties, while hundreds of thou- 
sands of acres were abandoned to tax-title purchasers. There was 
brooding a financial cloud of inky blackness — no credit and poor 
money, up to the mad treason of 1860. Being "land poor" was 



128 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

not a figure of speech ; and to introduce sheep was my device, and 
let the plough rest. In the meantime occurred a perhaps ludicrous 
interlude in m}^ pioneer life, which may be here narrated. 

HOW AND WHY I BECAME A LAWYEK. 

On going to Iowa there was much legal business at hand, mak- 
ing bonds, deeds and special contracts, and I scouted the old forms 
as long, wordy, without reason, and their continuance a reproach 
to the age. At a social evening gathering of court lawyers, about 
1858, Judge Stone being present, I ridiculed the useless forms, and 
was answered, " That would do for an unprofessional," etc. 

Attorney-General Samuel A. Rice, afterward Brigadier-Gen- 
eral, who died of his wounds, said I was in the main right, and, if 
I so wished, he would propose me for admission to the Iowa Bar. 
That was Avhat I meditated as a convenience in the future, for I 
did own a Blackstone and the code, drawn as a senator, and in 
discussion of the session laws had often heard what was "common 
law," enforced as very uncommon laAV in perversion of statutes. 
The learned young chaps who mouthed often great words which 
Blackstone seldom used, were eager for such game in the examina- 
tion as I promised to be. On my name being presented for admis- 
sion the court appointed our first lawyer chairman of the com- 
mittee. General Rice. He had but few elementary questions, 
while the committee boys seemed stirred with deep excitement, 
asking questions, and I gave the aptest burlesque replies at com- 
mand, which they hinted were not plain ; and I fell back on the 
privilege of counsel that I had high authority for the opinion that 
the "use of language was to conceal thouglits". In the next resort 
I availed myself of the usage of the court, "reserving an opinion" 
until consulting the authorities ; or I bandied the eager young 
gentleman with an answer in Latin, which he said he did not 
understand, to which I replied I did not doubt it — an easy extin- 
guisher. After long and mutual merriment. Rice in seriousness 
came to the rescue, saying, "The lawyer determined his fitness by 
taking good cases, and honorably prosecuting them, and he was sat- 
isfied to report on my giving a satisfactory answer to one constitu- 
tional question, viz. : Whether in my reading and reflection it is in 
violation of our Constitution to make a practical and personal 
appropriation of bivalves at this season of the year ? " On a neg- 



\[ 



BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 129 

ative answer to this question, he felt, called upon to recommend 
an admission as following a well-established precedent if not stat- 
ute law. Of course, a supper was eaten after admission, by as 
hilarious a company as ever sits down, wanting the usual fluid 
excitement. 

There soon came to me two offers of law partnership, and the 
proffer of collections, Avhich were declined. Once a dr<ift of two 
hundred and fifty dollars came just at the right time. I was couii- 
sel on the right side of the largest case in our county, and it 
is not vain for me to mention that I secured a proposal to the 
county of settlement of railway indebtedness, which would have 
saved us more than fifty thousand dollars had not the advice 
of lawyers in ignorance or with motives I will not name, been 
followed. 

At that time admission to the Bar of course was a burlesque, 
but, written in the briefest language, my legal papers have stood 
the test, while many words have been fruitful of litigation, 
whereof only the hungry lawyers were gainers. A fortunate inter- 
pretation of contracts in the legal affairs of the Central Iowa Rail- 
way saved thousands of dollars to the company, and, before the 
Supreme Court of the state and the Supreme Coiirt at Washington, 
I became a practitioner in matters of personal interest leading to 
equity, and I found mingled pleasure and success. The cases 
which I have caused quietly to be compromised were many. The 
first device was to subdue the temper, and the second to show that 
success even, in many cases, involves friction and pecuniary loss. 
This required delicate treatment to bring victims from the coils of 
counsel who had more regard for notoriety and fee than for 
justice. 

There may be honor, which I doubt, among thieves, but little 
when robust clients are to be plucked or a pound of flesh taken 
regardless of blood. A class of idle loungers stir up canines on 
the corner for a fight, nursing brutality ; a class of pettifoggers in 
legal business stir up litigation more degrading than any brute 
warfare, and then laugh at their dupes, traducing the judge as the 
author of defeat, or a jury which they irreverently send to another 
and warmer realm. Honorable and strictly honest counsel will 
make our court dockets"* slim, for there is not in the West legiti- 
mate business for one out of five of the lawyers, seeking practice 
by technical arts and fictitious pleas too long tolerated. Business 



130 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

demands biit few, plain wok^s, and I hold in high honor those who 
study peace, and practice in emergencies with fidelity. Bribery in 
official station so often talked of, I have never known, but legal 
collusion in secret, and open words like daggers, both of which 
must excite disgust even in the lower regions. Such shysters are 
in love with grand juries, and can coach or corner a witness on 
the stand with grimace and snakish eye. Filth to them is like 
nutritious food; they are crazy on constitutions, and in spasms of 
assumed virtue on a human suggestion not written in law. They 
have no God, nor one fit to be written with a small g. Human 
gad-flies — ! Vale ! 

My examination for the Bar reminds me of the early Oxford 
examinations for degrees. Professor Bryce, addressing the stu- 
dents of Iowa College, alluded to an eminent scholar years ago, not 
yet tested in his literary talent. While a candidate he was asked 
but one question, and that ^vas, who founded Oxford University. 
His reply was, ''I am not certain, I think it was King Alfred." 
His answer was wrong, but he obtained the degree, as I did an 
admission to the Bar, without regard to qualification. Thirty 
years have changed the conditions of admission to legal practice. 



CHAPTER IX. 

The War Congress — 1863-5 — A Seat Ejnsode — Wilson, Kasson, 
Price, Allison, Hubbard, E. C. Ingersoll, Lovejoy, Henry Winter 
Davis, Oakes Ames, President Hayes, President Garfield, Col- 
fax, Blaine and others — The Opposition Leaders, Hendricks, 
Voorhees, Brooks, Wood, Cox, etc. — War Days at Home. 

I TOOK my seat in the Thirty-eighth Congress assembled in 
December, 1863. It was charged witii the gravest duties ever 
intrusted to statesmen of any country or age. Gigantic war car- 
ried on in new methods, and a financial policy involving thousands 
of millions of dollars, were of equal concern ^ — ^all related to the 
issue of battles. There was the arming of the blacks, the act of 
emancipation, and confiscation — topics of stern debate and of 
momentous import, watched as we were by jealous enemies abroad, 
and more exposed to dangers from much of the professed loyalty 
at home, which the sequel proved was for the defense and restora- 
tion of a disloyal party to place and power. 

A SEAT EPISODE. 

I must give in reminiscence how I came to be favored by a 
number of the chief actors in this grand epoch. There is a great 
choice in seats in the Representative Hall, which was built with 
regard to show, rather than business and acoustic qualities. Those 
in the front are disliked, and those in the rear are obnoxious on 
account of distance and intrusions by a cloak-room lobby, where 
there is noise and confusion. 

This is the method on an occasion to which there is attached 

a deep interest by the old members, who know the advantages of 

J a good location to hear readily and gain an audience in times of 

excitement. The names of all the members are written on slips of 



132 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

paper and placed in a box, from which a blinded page draws the 
names, and the early called get the choicest seats. It was my for- 
tune to draw third, and I chose the best locality in the Ways and 
Means circle next to Mr. Stevens' old seat, long held by him — the 
Nestor of the House. Nearing the end of the called list, a mem- 
ber from Kew York, amid hisses, took Mr. Stevens' long reserved 
seat, saying, "This is a body of equals." Nearly the last member 
to draw was Mr. Stevens, and all but the very rear Avere taken, 
from which he could not be heard, besides being unfit locally for 
the leader of the House. 

Soon the feeble old man, with a club-foot came hobbling up 
the aisle. As he passed along, I stepped out and touched his 
shoulder, saying, "This is the seat for you, which I yield to the 
venerable." "No, I cannot take it, for it is worth more than 
money." But, without rudeness, I placed him in the seat aided 
in entreaty by his old friends. Though deserving no credit, I was 
as much praised as the other was blamed, whose greed got the 
better of his judgment. I call no name, but he lost caste — was 
never listened to without a private gibe or a severe press notice. 
He failed of renomination and sank out of political view by this 
trivial act — if nothing else, a political blunder, next to a crime. 

A bright page found me a good, overlooked seat, and the 
acquaintance made with the old Commoner was of more value than 
one term in Congress. I had only to hint to Mr. Stevens to learn 
the order of bills, with the jDrivilege of amendment and frequent 
yielding of time in debate. He said, " If we live, time will bring 
us side by side in the next Congress." My good fortune in sitting 
by Mr. Stevens in the Thirty-ninth Congress, to be referred to 
later, further illustrates his character. 

From Iowa 'we were all new members, save James F. Wilson — 
now and for eight years United States Senator. He was the young- 
est member of the great Committee, the Judiciary, in a previous 
Congress, also at its foot. In the new Congress, Mr. Wilson was 
the only republican returned of the former cast, but there were 
older lawyers aspiring to the chairmanship, and with others I did 
not choose a speaker without an assurance that our colleague was 
not to be jumped. Mr. Wilson became a leader, while his col- 
leagues were Judges Bingham, Williams, and Ex-Governor Bout- 
well, who served in this capacity with honor during the impeach- 
ment trial of Andrew Johnson. While this may be no time to 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 133 

praise the living, it will serve my purpose later in sliowing the 
high regard of President Grant for Mr. Wilson, who was offered a 
cabinet position ; and indirectly my interest in a person truly the 
pride of his state, whose history he has adorned while declining 
three places. 

John A. Kasson of Iowa, then in the House, has since been 
known in high rank of public trusts, negotiating postal treaties, 
and his career culminating in diplomatic service to Berlin and 
elsewhere. Hiram Price, also with more than national fame, was 
transferred from Congress to the important post of Commissioner 
of Indian Affairs, rendering great service to the country and to our 
dusky wards of the reservations. William B. Allison, still more 
widely known, and serving near three terms in the United States 
Senate, declined cabinet position under both Garfield and Harri- 
son; he was strongly put forward as a presidential candidate in 
1888, and holds no second place in our Senate. Kor can we for- 
get A. W. Hubbard, who, depressed in service by ill health, died 
some years since with a most honorable record. Sioux City was 
his home, which he did not live to see rise to the measure of his 
prediction ; it is now the refined grand city of growth and the com- 
mercial metropolis of our rich new North-west, It was a harmoni- 
ous delegation with divers tastes but well assigned on committees, 
for peculiar service that gave it reputation as the strong "Hawk- 
eye team". I was on the committee on Post Ofilces and post 
roads, which gave me a desired opportunity to serve my district, 
long neglected ; also on other committees of importance. 

On the death of Owen Lovejoy of Illinois, who had earned his 
way near the head of one of the most desirable committees, that 
of Territories, I was appointed to the vacancy, a compliment 
which I had not earned by any real service, but made on the 
request of Mr. Thaddeus Stevens. Mr. Eben C. Ingersoll, a 
brother of the since well-known Robert G. Ingersoll, was Mr. 
Lovejoy's successor from Illinois. He was much depressed by the 
routine before him, in not finding a proper place on committees. 
I resigned in his favor, in honor of the district and its representa- 
tion, and in aid of the successor of my good friend. I received 
the following letter, hereafter mentioned in criticism of Robert G. 
Ingersoll. 



134 REMINISCENCES OF FOBTY YEARS. 

My Dear Sir: 

I am informed by my brother, lonely and disgusted with his congressional life 
on the tail of committees, with nothing to do, that you have come to his relief. It 
is a high place he fills by your resignation, he tells me. If I have judged Congress 
made up of mortals akin to the lower animals in pushing for the full end of the 
trough, I make an honorable exception. I thank you, and we may meet, when it 
will be a pleasure, if in my power, to reciprocate the act of a gentleman. 

Yours Truly, 

Robert G. Ingersoll. 

Hon. J. B. Grinnell, M. C. 

OWEN LOVEJOT. 

On the persoimel of that House, I first name the lamented Love- 
joy. We were in sympathy, pioneers, farmers, radicals. He was 
the boldest of congressmen, fiery, eloquent, invincible in debate, 
an historic character, with no stain upon his reputation. At the 
congressional mortuary services in these decades there never has 
been shown more of emotion and the grief of colleagues than on 
the occasion of his death. Even Pendleton, one of the bulwarks 
of Democracy, surpassed radical comrades in warmth of eulogy. 
The following was reported in the Globe — one of the brief eulogies 
on the deceased statesman in the House of Representatives : 

Mr. Grinnell. Mr. Speaker: I have just returned from a long journey, and 
it is only since I came into the Hall this morning that I received an intimation 
that I was to speak on this mournful occasion. My few words shall be the sympa- 
thetic utterances of a mourning friend rather than those of a classic eulogist. I 
had the honor of an intimate acquaintance with the deceased, having shared the 
bounteous hospitality of his western home, and at his bedside in this city I strove 
to drink in the inspiration of his spirit. 

But a few weeks since, in his sick-room, I expressed fears for his recovery. I 
saw the tears course down his manly cheek as he said, "Ah! God's will be done, 
but I have been laboring, voting and i^raying for twenty years that I might see 
the great day of freedom which is so near and which I hope God will let me live to 
rejoice in. I want a vote on my bill for the destruction of slavery, root and 
branch." He saw the sun of national liberty, but in its rising, when he hoped 
to gaze on it with raptures in its midnoon splendor ; but mysteriously has God 
called him above the storm-clouds of war, bringing rest to his weary spirit, and 
new vision, with an exchange of the sorrows of earth for the joys of heaven. A 
Christian and a hero has gone home, where there will be a multitude to welcome 
and no one wronged to confront him. 

As I review his eventful life I am constrained to believe that had he died 
thirty years ago the world would have said, AVe have lost a promising scholar. 
Had his decease been twenty years since he would have been called a fanatic by 
almost universal acclaim. Had he left the world ten years since, the narrow circle 
in which he moved would have felt the loss of an obscure free-soil candidate for 
Congress and a Congregational minister. But Avhat have ten years of noble, heroic 
devotion to freedom achieved ! The clergyman, by leaving his flock for the prom- 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 135 

ising field which invited his labors, is justified. A man and a citizen before a 
minister, he proved that his politics were consistent with and not derogatory to 
Christian and ministerial character, following the example of Mayhew, Cooper 
and Witherspoon of our early days, who were not more eminent in the ijulpit than 
learned and useful as legislators, neither of whom made apology for a change of 
vocation when they might speak for a nation in the forum, and espouse the cause 
of liberty for the world. Our friend loved peace, and accepted the arbitrament of 
the sword only as a dire necessity. In his holy hate for the rebellion, and slavery, 
its cause, he was — 

" For the peace which rings out from the cannon's throat, 
And the suasion of shot and shell. 
Till rebellion's spirit is trampled down 
To the depths of its kindred hell." 

Then for this country there was the ideal of the churcla, "beautiful as Tirzah, 
comely as Jerusalem, and terrible as any army with banners," to which he was 
consecrated. The witnesses of his early and later devotion made him as eyes to 
the blind, feet to the lame; and the cause which he knew not he searched out. 
His home was his castle, where he gave assurance of shelter and defense to the 
escaped from the southern prison-houses, who were thousands, and he caused the 
widow's heart to sing for joy, while the blessing of many ready to perish fell on 
him. 

Mr. Speaker, it is too early to pronounce the eulogy on our deceased brother. 
Respice Jlnem : wait till the ripening of that of which he sowed the seed. Give 
time to gather up the great thoughts first expressed in the log school-house, which 
gathered volume, re-echoed from the pulpit, and, taken up by the telegraph and the 
press as from the statesman, true to his convictions, and the fearless unapproached 
orator. The glory of his life and the grandeur of his character will be unappre- 
ciated until the last shackle falls from the slave and the muse of history asks for 
those who were of the first to strike for the poor and end their life with humane 
and Christian devotion. 

It is well expressed, Owen Lovejoy was no ordinary man. In the stern period 
of our history, breasting prejudice and obloquy, he rose to that proud distinction 
to which the impassioned eloquence of this morning is a fitting accord. His 
marked characteristics were evinced in firmness like his native mountains, and 
there was a scope of mind which seemed to borrow breadth and beauty of imagery 
from the expanse of his prairie home, carpeted with floral decoration. Above all, 
he died a Christian. With more than the honors of a conquerer will his dust rest 
in sepulture among the people by whom he was so ardently loved, and his soul, 
ascending to his God, would, if it might speak to us, counsel, Love your country, 
remember her despised poor, and if you would rescue anything from the wreck of 
time, lay it up in God. 

It should be added that Mr. Lovejoy made the boklest replies 
to the maligners of President Lincoln; and the art of standing 
undaunted in front of a howling, profane crowd of rebels, placed 
him high in a niche in ''Freedom's Holy Fane". He is remem- 
bered still for his bill which Avas to stamp out slavery, root and 
branch, not waiting for the arbitrament of war, or constitutional 
fiats in amendments. 



136 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

Henry Winter Davis of Maryland, was the great orator. He 
had shocked even Chicago by his Fourth of July oration, declaring 
that honor, safety and statesmanship would give the black man the 
vote everywhere under the flag. This gentleman was the chairman 
of the committee of foreign affairs. He suddenly died in 1865 — 
too early for his state and the nation. He was, by the universal 
verdict, the popular, magnetic speaker of Congress. His father 
was a clergyman, and the son had enjoyed the best classical train- 
ing as a student, and the discipline of the professor. Every 
subject he handled was with the grace of a gentleman and the cul- 
tivation of an orator. His true picture hangs near me, the type 
of a brave, restive agitator, having faith in the triumph of the 
noblest principles and of the Christian religion. His encounters 
with General Frank P. Blair, jr., a soldier, attested his prowess ; 
and his sad demise brought mourning to all the higher circles of 
civilians. 

His speech of April 11th, 1864, was the notable effort of the 
time, and my best tribute to his genius will be found in this quo- 
tation, ending in a climax — a plea against all compromises with 
rebels : 



"It is because the people of the United States, rising to the height of the 
occasion, dedicated this generation to the sword, and pouring out tlie blood of their 
children as of no account, and vowing before high Heaven that there should be no 
end to this conflict but ruin absolute or absolute triumph, that we now are what 
we are; that the banner of the Republic, still pointing onward, floats proudly in 
the face of the enemy ; that vast regions are reduced to obedience to the laws, and 
that a great host in armed array now presses with steady step into the dark regions 
of the rebellion. It is only by the earnest and abiding resolution of the people 
that, whatever shall be our fate, it shall be grand as the American nation, worthy 
of that Republic which first trod the path of empire and made no peace but under 
the banners of victory, that the American people will survive in history. And 
that will save us. We shall succeed, and not fail. I have an abiding confidence 
in the firmness, the patience, the endurance of the American people ; and, having 
vowed to stand in history on the great resolve to accept of nothing but victory or 
ruin, victory is ours. And if with such heroic resolve we fall, we fall with honor, 
and transmit the name of liberty, committed to our keeping, untarnished, to go 
down to futui-e generations. The historian of our decline and fall, contemplating 
the ruins of the last great Republic, and drawing from its fate lessons of wisdom 
on the waywardness of men, shall drop a tear as he records with sorrow the vain 
heroism of that people who dedicated and sacrificed themselves to the cause of 
freedom, and by their exami^le will keep alive her worship in the hearts of men till 
happier generations shall learn to walk in her paths. Yes, sir, if we must fall, let 
our last hours be stained by no weakness. If we must fall, let us stand amid the 
crash of the falling Republic and be buried in its ruins, so that history may take 
note that men lived in the middle of the nineteenth century worthy of a better 



REMINISCENCES OF FOETY YEARS. 187 

fate, but chastised by God for the sins of their forefathers. Let the ruins of the 
Republic remain to testify to the latest generations our greatness and our heroism. 
And let Liberty, crownless and childless, sit upon these ruins, crjang aloud in a 
sad wail to the nations of the world, ' I nursed and brought up children and they 
have rebelled against me '." 

Oakes Ames was one of the quiet but potent factors in tlie War 
Era. It is dangerous to devise without the counsel of strong finan- 
ciers. In the great war epoch, no man's opinion on finance was 
more sought for, and on a close vote a quiet appeal was of greater 
service than vociferous speech. Mr. Stevens would say to me, " I 
wish I knew Avithout asking how Ames stood. He can be relied 
on to kill what is not worthy of support, for he is a man of affairs, 
doing more for a great enterprise, which may bring only curses, 
than any man in Congress." 

A brief tribute was paid to him in my " Cattle Industries of 
the United States ". I stood by his monument at Sherman, Wyom- 
ing. This monument is of native granite, forty feet square, one 
hundred feet in height, and costing one hundred thousand dollars. 
Oliver Ames, the conservative brother, in a granite bust, faces east- 
ward; Oakes Ames, the congressman, has his face westward. He 
was the animating soul. 

" We all stepped from the cars and cheered, amid the waving 
of handkerchiefs by ladies, in honor of a name beyond the reach of 
calumny, high on the roll of American benefactors. The writer 
could not suppress his emotion in regret that he, so brave and 
devoted, was not spared to witness more than the fruition of his 
fondest hopes ; to know that his fame is alike assured with the 
' sages who wrote and the warriors who have bled ' ; and, without 
the commemorative monument, the herdsman by the mountains, 
and travelers in journeys from ocean to ocean, and all just Ameri- 
cans will honor his name down the ages, 'till the sun grows cold 
and the stars are old '." 

The State of Massachusetts, by the clear voices of her scholars 
and patriots may well ask — it does — that the resolution of cen- 
sure be expunged. It will be in due time, when the feeble tributes 
of to-day will be forgotten amid the thrilling plaudits of brave, 
just citizens for an honest man and wise legislator. 

I might enlarge in further personal mention of the actors in 
the War Congresses. Their names and promotions are suggestive 
of the noblest manhood, and in association with immortal deeds. 



138 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEAES. 

I notice a few names from the civil and military lists promoted to 
senators, governors and well-equipped diplomats, but a failure to 
mention a longer list does not imply less patriotic -devotion on 
their part to the country's weal. Many, with an aversion to poli- 
tics have been found engaged in private affairs, and in public 
enterprises congenial to taste and bringing greater profit. 

KUTHERFORD B. HAYES 

was a quiet, modest gentleman in personality, a soldier patriot, 
and a decided statesman president. He is gaining a larger place 
in the hearts of his countrymen by the hearty and beneficent serv- 
ices of a private citizen, when human elevation and want ask a 
friendly voice or wise counsel. 

A brief congressional career was closed by the nomination for 
governor of Ohio of this quiet man, before known to the House by 
a speech on a resolution. A question of one of his sagacious col- 
leagues I repeated for the merriment of the fortunate president at 
the White House. "Do you know that man next to Colfax— a 
smiler — how tasteful in dress, always writing, never making a 
political record; he has the common sense to Avin. Watch and 
cultivate him. He will be president of the United States." 

JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

President Garfield was quite another statesman. A frequent 
speaker and a leader in debate, learned, fervid and electrical. He 
appeared in the apt moment to win the votes for a nomination by 
a fine civil and military career and captivating eloquence. What 
member spent so many hours in the library and who of the Presi- 
dents was his peer in scholarship. Nor was he wanting socially 
in gentlemanly spontaneity. His mind was a storehouse of facts, 
not less than his heart of desires and plans for the education of 
his generation. Thus I recall the pleasant good-morning slap on 
the shoulder : " Well, Josiah, how is Iowa College ? I envy you 
and wish my people were up to your standard. The best service 
now I could render my people would be in an educational line 
week days, and good words and a higher life on Sunday. For 
Hiram Institute I have plead by day and dreamed by night in 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 139 

anxiety, for a higher education and practical is the work near to 
us, since the drum-beat of silence." 

Vice-President Wheeler was a quiet New York statesman. 
Schuyler Colfax, the pet of the press, and a gentleman urbane, 
high-toned and exemplary in life, rose to the second place in the 
government, but passed under a political cloud which cast its 
shadow over him, I truly and charitably believe, not by evil com- 
plicity on his part with the " Credit Mobilier " scandal, but by a 
possible mistake of one of the parties, perhaps never to be 
explained. Most cheerful was Mr. Colfax as I met him in Denver, 
happy out of the political whirl, and gladly leaving his fame to a 
later generation. 

This war Congress also furnished James G. Blaine as speaker, 

who, notwithstanding the trials of a candidate, is extolled even 

' by enemies as a great statesman, even if failing to reach the 

high position to which he was believed to have been elected in 

1884. 

War legislation and army experiences educated the following 
I gentlemen of national repute, giving the responsibilities of senator 
I or governor. The State of Iowa has wisely kept William B. AUi- 
I son and James F. Wilson in the Senate ; of them I have spoken. 
Cornelius Cole appeared from California; J. A. J. Cresswell was 
I cabinet minister as well as senator; Gov. George S. Boutwell and 
( Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts were senators ; E. H. Rollins 
I and J. W. Patterson of New Hampshire, Justin S. Morrell of Ver- 
\ mont, T. W. Ferry of Michigan, Eoscoe Conkling of New York, 
i Philetus Sawyer of Wisconsin, Shelby CuUom of Illinois, and the 
1 lamented William Windom of Minnesota, reached political fame 

without scandal. 
j William B, Washburn and Alexander H. Eice of Massachu- 

i setts, and Sidney Perham of Maine, became governors, while there 
I were, distinguished in the diplomatic service, Elihu B. Washburn, 
I Gen. Robert C. Schenck, and John A. Kasson, all united in convic- 
tion that the constitutional amendments were necessary as anch- 
orage in reconstruction. Fiercely opposed — leading spirits in 
the democratic party, yet finding distinction, were Brooks, Cox 
Pendleton, Kerr, Vice-President Hendricks and Fernando Wood. 
These have closed their career, leaving Kernan, Holman and Voor- 
hees in meditation upon perverse action and false prophecies of ill 
success in reconstruction, which they jeopardized by sympathy 



140 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

with the vanquished, and in a desire for the domination of the 
party recreant to principle and lacking capacity to govern. 

In the Senate were our bold colleagues, the bulwarks of the 
Union, strengthening the armed cohorts. It is a fashion to talk of 
the "better days of the republic" and to depreciate living actors. 
In this there is no reason. A better organized heart-and-brain- 
equipped company of statesmen, of genial, radical co-laborers, will 
never be raised up to confront traitors. What jointly had we to 
do? To defend and enforce the draft in the presence of the 
Knights of the Golden Circle, one of the most secret, wicked, 
powerful and cruel organizations to be found in all the chapters of 
time — unmasked by ex-cabinet Minister Joseph Holt, who with 
almost inspired denunciation placed it as on its final gibbet. 
Then there was the greenback, virulently attacked in both houses, 
a financial device based on the credit and character of our people, 
assailed at every step as an imconstitutional issue of money. 
Then the internal revenue scheme, which stamped a burden on 
business, yet a necessity in raising revenue, was a fit subject for 
the constant jeer of those only that may be likened to a Nero, who, 
if not the author of the conflagration of a city, could at least fiddle 
and smile over its ruins. Greater than all was the protective tar- 
iff, its success, next to emancipation, inspiring hate for the eastern 
states, and plots to alienate the West, as if both sections were not 
bound together in the issues which these great measures embraced. 

I name these senators not in the order of their potency. Wil- 
liam Pitt Fessenden, the son of Samuel Fessenden, an old aboli- 
tionist at whose hospitable table I have sat in Portland, Me., was 
cool and logical. Senator Lyman Trumbell, of Illinois, in draft of 
bills and analytical debate had no peer, as his colleague, Ex-Gov- 
ernor Yates, who fell so sadly by intemperance, had no equal in 
brilliancy, as was evinced in his championship on many subjects. 
John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, was earlier on the ground, the 
wit and patriot for a decade, the pride of the North and a foe in a 
well-clad mail which the chivalry of the South could not pierce. 
Senator Zachary Chandler of Michigan and Senator Wade of Ohio, 
were rough in expression, bolder in action for having made an 
exposure on the "Conduct of the War" as waged by the craft and 
inaction of General McClellan. These senators wore his military 
scalp dangling as a trophy, which I now believe was more than an 
incident to the unfolding of a political conspiracy, and the destruc- 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 141 

tion of slavery and the restoration of the Union. Sumner of 
Massachusetts, the scholar, and Wilson the Natick cobbler, with 
Iowa's eminent and alert senators, I have elsewhere sketched, to 
whom might be added a list composed of E-everdy Johnson of 
Maryland, a late convert, John Sherman of Ohio, and Solomon 
Foote of Vermont, whom I have placed on a pedestal with the 
loyal Vermonters at his funeral obsequies in the capitol. 

Of the opposition, the genial Hendricks of Indiana, was not so 
far party-blinded as not to admit his mistake ten years later. 
McDougal of California, was seldom sober enough to represent 
either himself or his loyal people; while Garrett Davis of Ken- 
tucky, had a whining refrain, disgusting his Senate colleagues and 
the country with harangues only remembered by their days of 
duration, there being no previous question to arrest his garrulous- 
ness in debate. 

Senator D. W. Voorhees of Indiana, was the bitter, impassioned 
orator and opposition leader. He dared to be bold in figures and 
dashing in rhetoric. The late Samuel J. Randall of Pennsylvania, 
also a democrat, I saw in his incipient greatness ; he Avas social, 
genial, ambitious, tolerant, an honest advocate of the American 

j protective principle, and of him it will be said when his life is 
written, " He was the ambitious partisan who saved his party from 
defeat, and in whose sad demise there is a tear for a foe who 

I had no enemy, and a statesman without a price, yet with an unen- 
viable war record." 

The late James Brooks of New York, triplex in the gifts of 
orator, writer and historical statesman, of the democratic party, 
went down under the same cloud and by the same agencies as. 
Oakes Ames of Massachusetts. Mr. Brooks in temperament was 
fitted for a revolutionist, and in the American Congress, with pro- 
fessions of loyalty, was one of the ablest and most dangerous of 
the obstructionists of his party who held sway in the city of New 
York. He was unseated by the model philanthropist and states- 
man, William E. Dodge, whose memoirs by his son, D. Stuart 
Dodge, should be read by every person seeking the highest loyal 
type of manhood. 

Some, in the House, not only whispered their sympathy with 
treason, but like Benjamin B. Harris of Maryland and Alexander 
Long of Ohio, declared our war a barbarism ; and success, they 
fervently hoped, would be impossible. Resolutions of censure 



142 EEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

were passed, but not a two-thirds vote could be obtained after a 
lengtliy and bitter discussion. This fact gave comfort to the 
enemy and proved the status of at least sixty democrats in the 
House. The discussion itself was salutary, educating up to a high 
plane of loyalty at home, nursing the valor of the soldiers in the 
field, while awakening detestation for peace democrats, who were 
called Copperheads, really the most dangerous foe to a restoration 
of the Union, whatever their professions. Fernando Wood of 
New York, the ex-mayor, was a cunning rebel, but not more in 
favor than the more frank and bold sympathizers with the South. 
Pendleton of Ohio, was the cool statesman, who added nothing to 
his permanent fame by the championship of civil service reform. 
Yet, I could praise him for his eulogy of Lovejoy, remembering 
how frank were his expressions and genial his nature ; but this 
could be no atonement for a failure to support the constitutional 
amendments. 

Of S. S. Cox of New York, deceased in 1889, I said: 

He was alert, almost ubiquitous, voluble, ready in debate, witty in retort, and 
an able parliamentarian. His industry as a legislator and his classic tastes always 
won respectful and delighted hearers, while he lacked that power to which learn- 
ing, eloquence and thirty years' service gave him title. As a man he was social 
and attractive; the delight of the galleries, with the suave ways of a " Buckeye" 
and refinement of a savant and fortunate traveler. He Avas cautious and wary in 
public gaze and discussion, as evinced in declining debate with the elegant and 
bold Henry Winter Davis, especially avoiding the old commoner wielding a Damas- 
cus blade — Thaddeus Stevens. Once, in a thoughtless hour and mood, on hurl- 
ing a question at Ben Butler, I saw a wave of the hand in disdain and heard an 
echo, the street song of the boys — 

" Shoo fly, don't bodder me." 

This, taken up by a prolonged shout of the house, was one of the most effect- 
ive rebuffs on record. Mr. Cox was the best equipped and ablest politician of his 
party, yet never fully trusted. He incurred the dislike of Pendleton and Kandall, 
and was quite too conspicuous for the fame of younger and ambitious partisans. 
It was a cold and unfeeling part which he played on the Freedman's Bureau Bill, 
and after the war naming Republicans miscegenationists, as more offensive to the 
"groundlings" than that of Abolitionists. His "Anti-robber" tariff speeches 
were numerous and illusory, adapted to free-trade New York, while he well knew 
that protection was the safer policy, and matured conviction of the "West. His 
peculiar friends may hold that in the war, like Douglas, he forgot party to be a 
patriot. But he was the bitterest foe of the great amendments and our national 
currency; and ablest generals in the field he satirized without reason. The biog- 
rapher will note that he did not attain the power or place to which an author, a 
scholar and wit gave title. This may well be the solution of the failure — lack of 
courage and conviction — a politician in search of mere majorities. 

The blacks, their position in the war, and their future, was a 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 143 

question which loomed high and was the occasion of many a tlireat- 
ening storm. Even if egotistic, I must say that the first resolution 
which I ever offered in the American Congress and which was 
adopted, gave focus to an opinion and was in these words: 
Eesolved, that a more vigorous policy to enlist, at an early day 
and in larger numbers, in our army, persons of African descent, 
would meet the approbation of the House. More than a mere sen- 
timent, it was heeded by land and by sea. There were new enlist- 
ments, and the policy of enrolling the black man as a sailor and a 
soldier was defended from the highest plane of statesmanship. 

A resume of the actors and the deeds furnishes a remarkable 
chapter in our historic annals. Has a nation raised up men more 
worthy of their mission than the loyal congressmen ? Have there 
been achievements, military or civil, to bear comparison with those 
of the war epoch ? The loyal legislators made history. They 
invoked the criticism of the civilized world, not less than its admi- 
ration for heroism and the soundness of their conclusions. Cour- 
age and sacrifice were the first requirements, then patience, and 
broad statesmanship in reconstruction. Was it not an honor to be 
associated with the Thirty-eighth and Thirty -ninth Congresses — 
1863-1867 — marshaling armies, upholding credit, confronting for- 
eign enemies, silencing in the rear the guns of the Knights of the 
Golden Circle, restraining a president in his divisive plots, bring- 
ing life into new states and harmonizing by an industrial policy 
millions estranged by war into homogeneity ? 

To sum up the brilliant record of this War Congress would be 
to reprint the bold speeches of Thaddeus Stevens, on the con- 
quered states held as territories, and his defense of our financial 
system in the revenues it brought and in the credit of the country 
which it maintained. None wished to meet Stevens, nor Sumner, 
nor Trumbell, nor Harlan or Grimes in the open field of debate. 
Our enemies rested in the vain delusion that the northern people 
would waver in the presence of debts, personal alienation, and in 
the flow of rivers of blood. The star of Mr. Lincoln rose high, the 
valor of our patriots was assured to the world, and to the credit of 
Iowa, James Harlan in a speech in reply to Senator Saulsbury, bold 
in statement, clear in the light of religion and history, declared 
that no class of men were made for slavery, and that they who had 
enslaved, would, in their overthrow, learn a lesson by the ven- 
geance which the God of this nation would visit upon the disloyal. 



144 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

He lives crowned witli years and honors ; his colleague, Senator 
Grimes, has passed away, with national tributes to the memory of 
him, who, impatient with false leaders, was a mighty factor in 
making the navy a powerful arm of our national service, securing 
victories that overwhelmed pretended patriots in Congress, and the 
millions misled by their example. 

DARK WAK DAYS AT HOME. 

From the War Congress of 1863-5 we may turn to some local 
Iowa Scenes of 1864. AVar came to our doors. There was menace 
in the "Knights of the Golden Circle"; a spy often in the house; 
traitors in jury boxes, and judges with the heart of a Jeffreys on 
the bench in our cities. Even Mayor Wood of New York, proposed 
secession for that city. Ex-President Pierce gave his opinion to 
the world, by an intercepted letter, that there would be fighting 
among the dwellers on both sides of the Mason and Dixon line. 
Citizens of Iowa were in prison on charge of aiding rebels, and 
justice was then but partially meted out. 

This was a dark hour when the loyal pulse beat feverishly. 
Gold was worth a premium of one dollar and eighty cents. Banks 
were closing and capital hieing away into vaults, or passing to the 
Old World for safety in the emergency of disunion. The great 
city of New York in the hands of traitors, a colored orphan asylum 
in flames by the fury of a mob, Governor Seymour making a timid, 
perhaps a politic address to a mob, addressing it as "My friends!" 
Our xTuion forces in the field met defeats, and orders were given to 
draft for the military service. This brings up local history of a 
war incident, far from our battle-fields. 

The Provost Marshal's office, occupied by Captain James 
Mathews, had been established at Grinnell and loyal speakers held 
meetings to fill up the ranks, in hope to save us from disgrace of a 
draft. Sugar Creek township in the south-west corner of this 
county was behind in its quota. I had an appointment with 
Judge H. S. Winslow to speak south of Lynnville, in hope that 
enlistments could be secured from a section in default of its 
quota. Meantime the same fatal Saturday was a drill day for the 
copperhead disloyal circle. Captain J. M. Woodruff and John L. 
Bashore, soldiers on temporary leave, had notification papers for 
the arrest of three persons not appearing, called for by the draft. 



EEMINISCENCES OF FOETY YEARS. 145 

They took a buggy, and, well armed, struck south about fifteen 
miles to execute their writs. At Mr. J. A. Graver's, who was 
truly loyal, but cautious — father of Hon. C. F. Graver — they 
took dinner, and. then learned that part of a company had passed 
that way for drill day. There the parties wanted might be found 
bearing arms, and, before facing the disloyal cohorts, it was 
deemed best without risk to report the situation at head quarters. 
Without a suspicion or fear of an assault, they met an Irishman 
by the name of Pat Gleason, apparently well disposed to answer 
questions as to a return road through the grove. At that moment 
two men, the Fleener brothers, in ambush or on the way from the 
drill, fired upon the marshals from the rear, inflicting fatal 
wounds. The venom of an enemy appeared in the mild-mannered 
Gleason breaking his gun over the head of Bashore, but him- 
self received a shot which broke his leg, so that he was left a 
forced witness by the blood-thirsty Fleeners, who fled westward. 
Woodruff's last words were, "Tell the Gaptain I died doing my 
duty." A courier from Graver's, where the dead marshals had 
been borne from the brush, was sent to Grinnell, and the order for 
the arrest of the company and a proclamation of martial law was 
made, to protect the ofiice records while drawing the lines of deep- 
seated treason into bolder relief. The drilling company dispersed, 
and their guns were concealed rather than hung up for handy use 
as of old in the kitchens. Meantime, while making my way home 
after dark, my horses, quick under the lash, were in a fright, and I 
heard a shout, '^ It is hiih, by G — ," and the lash soon brought me 
beyond the lurking assassins whose threats had come to me. 
Fearing a second call, I hurried on to Mr. Kenworthy's, where I 
passed the night, yet only later aware of my real peril and narrow 
escape from assassination. 

It was a quiet Sabbath morning, when, nearing our city from a 
west road, I was challenged by soldiers and forbidden to pass with- 
out an order from the provost marshal. This was the first shock 
on the news of assassination, and the fear that treason might lay 
the town in ashes. Every loyal man seemed a marshal, and the 
riding through Sugar Creek and the borders of Washington town- 
ship, the secret lurking places of suspected criminals, would make 
a long and exciting chapter. 

I hastened to the scene of treason and murder. The Irishman 
Gleason I found in his cabin, and about to be strung up by a rope 



146 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

fastened to the rafters, so infuriated were our townsmen at his 
silence and stolid indifference to the murders which he had wit- 
nessed, if not a party thereto. Great was his surprise on seeing 
me, for months after he told me that they were after "larger 
game" than hireling strangers — they had vowed to die before 
going to help put down a nigger war. I protested, as the rope was 
about to be drawn, against hanging a man with a leg broken, and 
he could give us testimony perhaps important if left alive. He 
raised his head with a gleam of hope and said, "I will say some- 
thing if you will all leave the room and let me whisper to Grin- 
nell. This was his story: "I did not belong to the company; it 
was the two Fleeners who fired, and I came up and was shot. 
They went for you, and how did you escape ? Let me live and I 
will tell the truth. I know my guilt but don't want to die. I am 
no murderer." The crowd yielded as I came out, and Gleason was 
spared to be tried, and found guilty, and sentenced to be hung, his 
execution only arrested by a life imprisonment at Fort Madison 
(by order of President Johnson), where he died years after — I 
trust penitential, certainly a very good loyalist talker; and in 
prison he admitted that I saved his life in the cabin. If it was 
a cold-blooded refusal to sign the petition to prolong life, I felt 
there was an occasion for swift retribution to traitors of the ''fire 
in the rear" order. 

My next office was intercession for a liberation of a portion of 
the thirty suspected, under guard in my wool house, making a bed 
of the sacks soft with wool stored for market. Some of the 
number had the crown of years and a record of good behavior, 
while others could not be punished, for lack of an overt act. It 
was used as a most opportune occasion for advice to the doubtfully 
loyal. The corpses of the officers I accompanied to Oskaloosa, 
where crowds assembled. At Knoxville, the home of Capt. Wood- 
ruff, I addressed an immense crowd at the court house, picturing 
treason near home and the issue of blood in crimson flow at the 
South. It was an occasion to hush secret enemies, and it not only 
buoyed up the loyal but facilitated enlistments in protest to das- 
tardly assassination on Iowa soil. The state offered a reward of 
$500 for the capture of the Meeners, returned dead or alive, 
which I duplicated, so positive were we of the guilt and deserts of 
those men, never arrested. They had farms, and kindred suc- 
ceeded them in occupation. Perhaps twenty years had elapsed 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 147 

before they dared pollute our soil. It was in 1886 that I heard of 
their abode in the West, and there came a proposal for their arrest 
if the award was held good. The statute of limitations forbade 
their trial for murder, and a return to Iowa would have brought to 
them death by the enraged relatives of Bashore and Woodruff. 
To assassination I could not be a party, and those deserving death 
were left undisturbed after twenty-three years of expatriation in 
Kansas. So ends a chapter of home war history, and the days 
bringing joy but never mitigating the disloyalty of the ignorant 
dupes of the Knights of the Golden Circle, an order of which Val- 
landigham and reputed statesmen of his rank were secret leaders, 
only waiting for reverses in the field to hoist the flag of cowardly 
concession or disunion. 

Two noble lives on duty were worth a regiment in awakening 
patriotism in Iowa and unfolding the deep plots of traitors in the 
county. In company with the governor, the comrades of Bashore 
and Woodruff came down from Des Moines, so enraged that they 
asked permission for the privilege of taking care of the assassins, 
saying they would have fifty funerals in as many hours. This 
was not tolerated. Professor S. J. Buck of Iowa College, being 
captain at the head of many citizens and students, was quietly 
making arrests and unearthing the treasonable conspiracy that 
had ordered large shipments of muskets into the county. Those 
drafted who failed to report and for whom the officers held orders 
for an arrest, were Joseph Eobertson, Thomas Mclntyre and Sam- 
uel A. Bryant. 



CHAPTEE X. 

Thirty-ninth Congress, 1865-7 — Financial Problems — Red Tape 
— Whiskey Tax — The Thirteenth Amendment — Reconstruction 
— Review of the Times — The Press Reporters. 

It was under a brighter sky that I took my seat in the Thirty- 
ninth Congress. There had been sent up a body of legislators 
fresh from the people, demanding an unconditional surrender of 
the armed rebels. Only three states — Delaware, Kentucky and 
New Jersey — dissenting in the election of Mr. Lincoln. It is not 
to be assumed that the majority were in absolute harmony. A 
class like Senators Wade, Chase, Stevens and Davis, called "push- 
ing radicals ", had a policy in the treatment of contrabands. But 
they joined in the re-election of Mr. Lincoln, and on the surface 
there was political harmony. 

The following family letter is in marked contrast by its spirit, 
to that written on the meeting of the previous Congress. Then I 
was a stranger, my seat contested, and the country was under a 
war cloud of gathering blackness and bringing the throes of revolu- 
tion. Now, nothing could dim or hide the victories in the field. 
My seat, before contested, was now secured by a popular majority 
of six thousand votes. The letter is here given as narrating an 
incident in the life of Thaddeus Stevens rather than my own, and 
as expressing the universal joy of the loyal: 

House of Representatives, "Washington, D. C. 
My Dear Wife : 

Well, I am in my seat, and it is by invitation at the side of Mr. Stevens, the 
leader of the House. His name was in the top of the box for drawing, and on a 
full half-sheet of foolscap, which gave him the first choice, and his hat preempted 
the coveted next seat, which was reserved for me. It was in vain that I -said it 
belongs to an older member of your committee. "No, no. It was generosity in 
the last Congress that kept me from the noisy rear, and I want you right here, if 

you can endure trembling senility, and the adjoining profanity, for General 

is next on the left." A seat in this great noisy chamber is not a small affair ; then 



BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 149 

to know the order of business, and listen to the wits, as they hover near, is a great 
return for an act of civility. 

So with a good seat, not one contested in want of a home majority, as before, 
and buttressed now by six thousand majority, and with news of victories all along 
our lines, with fewer copperheads to face, I ought to be happy. I am at least con- 
tent, unsuited as Washington air and ways may be to my health, and so unlike 
home associations. Many of the ambitious in the home district covet my seat, and 
they will not find me in the way, by efforts to retain it if I can see the war over. 

Yours, 

J. B. Grinnell. 



This and the previous Congress had to deal with such financial 
problems as never had confronted a people. Hundreds of millions 
of a war debt had been contracted, and enemies at home and 
abroad pictured repudiation. The loyal, despoiled, clamored for 
pay ; railways sought relief from the harsh exactions of war, as 
common carriers in times of peace. Internal taxes seemed heavy. 
Wounded soldiers asked relief, and like those in the field desired 
larger pay and bounties for enlistment. Added to Just appeals, 
the demoralization of war was exhibited in stronger colors and 
with more repugnant facts. Plucking the government in many 
quarters was regarded as a pastime or a fine art. In disgust I was 
glad at last to close my congressional service. 

Oh, the red tape ! It dangled from the limp fingers of rollick- 
ing clerks, was in bows and knots, starched and plaited. It was a 
disgraceful burlesque to hunt in pigeon-holes, to aid a quartermas- 
ter or a postmaster in a trivial claim or correction. War had con- 
taminated the civil service with suspicions and obstructions, and 
it came to be, with an anathema, an opinion that it was easier to 
hole a lie than to recover a paper from a clerk's pigeon-hole. 

The day would open with letters in oppressive numbers — for 
example : 

A post office complaint. 

Notice of delicacies sent for delivery to boys in prison at Libby 
from home — many appeals before forwarded. 

Error in description of land patent. 

Soldier hears nothing of promised promotion. 

Contestants for bank charter. 

This is only a sample of demands that led an M. C. to draw the 
line of public service at taking in washing. It was unsafe to be 
absent, with only a small political margin in votes on vital ques- 
tions. The policy of a high whiskey tax for revenue was joined to 



150 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

one more tlian a collateral, a direct good in decreasing consump- 
tion by increasing the cost. City members, with those indifferent 
to the temperance cause were for a low rate. A heavy tax was 
adopted, after long discussion, bringing a wise solution of a great 
question in a revenue of a hundred million of dollars annually. I 
am glad to remember that I had an active part in effecting this end. 

It was a further duty to keep up courage at home. To repre- 
sent and respect the patriotism of our people, with eight thousand 
soldiers in the field from the Fourth District, I did get through 
my resolve for more currency. The West had need, as we were 
of the debtor class. The war party had the power of issuing 
bonds and the establishment of National Banks, to provide the 
sinews of war and maintain the national credit. 

But the great aspiration of the country was the entrenching of 
an emancipation edict as a war measure in the bulwarks of the 
constitution. A few votes were lacking to pass the Thirteenth 
Amendment, which was an occasion of grief to Mr. Lincoln not 
less than to the loyal soldiers and citizens of the North. 

Time, however, brought its conpensations after the democratic 
party had promulged the great war-failure lie, and made McClel- 
lan and Pendleton its standard-bearers. This left a square issue 
in the selection of members of Congress undaunted in spirit, and 
pledged to the great amendments by promises early redeemed. 
The proclamation did not, as Senator Cameron proved, "lose us the 
next elections ". History may record it as the great crisis, and in 
association with deeds which time cannot dim in congressional 
halls, only less brilliant in debate than victories in the field. 

A meeting of the loyal war governors was held at Altoona on 
the 22d of September, 1864, and an address made which was often 
quoted and gave backbone to feeble patriots ; also, a reassuring 
voice to soldiers tired of the camp and fearful of the "fire in the 
rear", which encouraged a prolongation of the war, permitting a 
cruel delusion at the South, and inviting murder at the North. 

In Congress, Alexander Long of Ohio, expressed his treason in 
the belief that we could not conquer the South, for we were in the 
wrong, and Benjamin G. Harris of Maryland, bolder than his 
party, said he would not vote a man or a dollar for the war. The 
effort at their expulsion revealed the desire of the hearts of those 
persons in Congress who were in their sympathy but too late to be 
effective. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 151 

Again "tlie wrath of man was made to praise Him". It was a 
tonic to our soldiers in the field, when they were lauded for brav- 
ery, bounties proffered, and tliousands of new recruits sent for- 
ward to close the war. It was the welcome to colored troops, and 
a widespread knowledge of victories in the camps begetting scorn 
for pretended patriots and blending the army for its triumph. 
Not so can I dismiss the carpers, cold-blooded traitors. Here I 
class Fernando Wood of New York. He was in Congress, skilled 
as a leader, and adept in awakening prejudice against the colored 
people. They were held to be too cowardly for soldiers, and quite 
beneath the care or thought of Congress as proposed by General 0. 
0. Howard, who was of course offensive to the disloyal as a soldier 
losing an arm in tlie decisive battle of Gettysburgh, and now 
chosen for his great heart and probity for service involving 
humane treatment to the poor, education for the children and 
enlistment of adults. It was a blow aimed by Wood at Grant pri- 
marily, but looking to awakening prejudices that would stir the 
lower classes and lessen the colored enlistments. It was the 
device of one who had hoped, as mayor of New York, that his city 
would go with the South. Defeat of his resolves does not lessen 
his perfidy nor atone for the prejudices aroused and evils caused 
by delays in securing legislation, alike demanded by the honor and 
justice of the nation. For the House a more radical Senate had 
led the way by a vote of thirty-eight yeas to six nays. Now West 
Virginia had a voice on the right side by her loyal Willey and 
sturdy Van Winkle, and Maryland sent the venerable Eeverdy 
Johnson to admit the evil of slavery in a state, and the policy of 
its inhibition forever. The longer sessions in that body having no 
previous question, permitted my hearing Senator Wade of Ohio 
with sledge hammer blows, Wilson of Massachusetts in pleas like 
a plebeian for the poor, and Charles Sumner on a broad plain of 
right for the nation, and a policy to save honor and the union. 
James Harlan of Iowa made one of the effective speeches of his 
life in reply to Saulsbury, who plead a Bible sanction for early slav- 
ery and the morality of the American system. Senator Sherman 
treated the divine right theory in this age as a nauseous defense 
of it ; and he did not convey a hint that those who resorted to these 
pleas were clouded in their intellect. I must, being true to my 
perceptions, affirm that Senator McDougal from California, and 
Saulsbury, were by their habits unfit for legislation. So charitable 



162 BEMINISCENCES OF FOETY YEARS. 

a plea could not be made for Hendricks of Indiana, who, late in life 
before reaching the Vice-Presidency, admitted his error. Eiddle 
of Delaware, kept the traditions of his state, and Powell of Ken- 
tucky, with Senator Davis of the same state, clung to their delu- 
sion of an old union with a slavery corner-stone; and Davis not 
only spoke hours, but days, after his squeaky voice and garrulous 
habits had emptied the galleries and put members to sleep in dis- 
gust ; the officials only remaining on duty to make an audience. 

In the House there was the now veteran Holman, ever an 
objector. Of Fernando Wood, Thaddeus Stevens spoke as one who 
for mere party could never hope to be ranked among statesmen. 
"Nay, sir, he will not even rise to the dignity of a respectable 
demagogue." 

S. S. Cox with the voice of Jacob could be seen with the hand 
of Esau indirectly, on economic questions, to arraign sections, to 
weaken the nation's power, unfairly using figures in delusive 
array. It became my duty to answer that there were no words fit 
to execrate the attempt, in time of war, of alienating people in a 
struggle for their flag. 

Mr Eandall of Pennsylvania had described the constitution 
sought to be despoiled as a tree which sheltered him in youth, and 
it was no time now to touch a single bough. General J. P. Farns- 
worth of Illinois, had come in from the war, and with fresh appeals 
and sharp retorts was the lieutenant in service of James M. 
Ashley of Ohio, who called the vote of the house only after he had 
polled it to learn that a few, recreant to their constituents, would 
prevent the adoption of the great measure under discussion. He 
changed his vote to ask a reconsideration, coolly saying, "The 
record is made up and we must go to the country on this issue 
presented." 

Concluding this nan-ation I would not omit another mention 
here of Owen Love joy, a brother of the Alton martyr, one of the 
first to confront, and daring in assault, having framed a bill antici- 
pating the great amendment. Too early for his country he died. 
And I may add in passing, that, as an unmerited compliment, I 
took the places vacated on committees held by the deceased. 

Small to the historian will appear the space allotted to most of 
us in freedom's majority, but the heads of the great committees 
like Stevens, Morrill, Wilson, Schenck^ Davis, Boutwell and others, 
will appear without a stain on their legislative garments — bold, 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 153 

yet tolerant ; the friends and admirers of our martyred chief, Lin- 
coln, not as a God dwelling among mortals, but as one waiting and 
moved by the divine hand. 

On the constitutional amendments Mr. Lincoln leaned in hope 
for their early passage. It was the forecast of statesmanship and 
shall be forever in memorial. His hope was realized. For the 
Thirteenth Amendment there were one hundred and twelve, lack- 
ing two votes to carry it. There were in opposition fifty-six. In 
the Senate there was the requisite two thirds in favor of the 
measure. There was an adjournment waiting for the verdict of 
1864 — Lincoln versus McClellan. It was glorious. The union 
was saved if the ballots were decisive, and January 31st, 1865, 
the rejected amendment was passed by the same Congress that 
waited to hear from the people. 

THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS. 

The Thirteenth read: Section 1st — Neither slavery nor invol- 
untary servitude except as a punishment for crime, whereof the 
party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist in the United 
States or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 

Section 2d — Congress shall have power to enforce this article 
by appropriate legislation. 

The presidential vote in 1864 gave such potency to the popu- 
lar voice as swept Mr. English, a Connecticut democrat, and Mr, 
Ganson of New York, into the majority current, voting aye. On 
the taking up of the question there was profound silence, crowded 
galleries and the intensest emotion, while with solemnity Mr. 
Thaddeus Stevens said, "We are about to ascertain the national 
will, by another vote to amend the constitution. If gentlemen 
opposite will yield to the voice of God and Humanity, and vote for 
it, I verily believe the sword of the destroying angel will be 
stayed, and this people be reunited. If we still harden our hearts, 
and blood must still flow, may the ghosts of the slaughtered vic- 
tims sit heavily upon the souls of those who cause it." 

In the sequel, on the passage of the amendment in the House 
without a vote to spare, it was a happy thought of Hon. E. C. 
IngersoU, the successor of Mr. Lovejoy, to rise and move that in 
view of this sublime event this Congress do now adjourn. It was 
a scene of hand-shaking, caressing, throwing of hats in the air, lift- 



154 BEIIINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

ing a great burden from the loyal heart. The contagious joy 
reached the White House, where Mr. Lincoln was serenaded and 
congratulated upon this amendment vote, which would be read 
around the world as a great moral victory. The votes of three 
fourths of the states soon followed and made the amendment a 
part of the Constitution of the United States. The Fourteenth 
and Fifteenbh Amendments were the natural sequences to the Thir- 
teenth. They become a study in the light of subsequent history 
and a necessity in carrying out the great purposes of the founders 
of o\ir government, denying a state the power to deprive any per- 
son of life, liberty or property, without due process of law. It 
apportioned representatives among the states, according to the 
number of persons, excluding Indians not taxed. It required a 
vote of two thirds of each House to remove disability, before per- 
sons who had taken an oath to support the Constitution of the 
United States, and had been engaged in the rebellion, could be 
qualified again to hold office. It asserted the validity of the pub- 
lic debts contracted in the war, and made provision for pensions 
and bounties, and denied all obligations as void in an insurrection 
or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or 
emancipation of any slave. It gave Congress power to enforce the 
amendment by appropriate legislation. 

RECONSTRUCTION. 

I meet to this day idle, floating reproofs of my policy in the 
solution of the great questions related to the civil war. For my 
vindication I could confidently appeal to the opinions of colleagues. 
"Why," it was asked, "did you not adopt Mr. Stevens' theory of 
the death of the seceding states by treason, and the confiscation 
of Rebel property to lighten the war debt ? " The answer is easy. 
These schemes could command only a majority of the war party. 
The cities desired a restoration of trade. Those who had seen 
the South in war desired to upbuild it in peace, looking to large 
gains and the welcome of the banished poor people ; and their cry 
was "forgetfulness and fraternity". A majority of loyal congress- 
men would have placed every rebel in arms on political probation, 
and given a vote to the loyal black man, and to the white man, 
who could read his ballot. There was on the surface a good 
answer to this scheme, that it would alienate venerable patriots 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 155 

whose ignorance was not their fault. It wouhl leave the loyal 
black man to suffer for the crime of his master who had inhibited 
the spelling-book and Bible. These questions would not wait on 
discussions in a political canvass ; for the wastes of war, certain 
high taxes, and a large standing army to enforce peace in the 
South, all conspired to prejudice the timid, tempt the sordid, and 
bring to the front leaders secretly against the war, and awake to 
the promise of an anti-bank and anti-tariff cry as means to 
secure the domination of the old party. 

It is true, ballot-stufiing, intimidation and unholy alliances 
have tended to discredit the wisdom of all the reconstru.ction acts. 
Still, courage and decision for the right, and an honest administra- 
tion may, in the light of a most wonderful exploit in the manage- 
ment of our war debt and the accretion of thousands of millions of 
dollars to our national wealth, secure a candid recast of opinion 
as the ratification of the acts of a memorable War Congress. 

My humble acts were based on decided convictions. All in my 
power in aid of high whiskey-excise duty, as a joint economic and 
temperance measure, was done. The encouragements of enlist- 
ments of colored troops under my resolutions, came to meet with 
favor. A larger volume of greenback currency for the West as the 
debtor states, was a measure of justice which I sought to push 
with vigor. It is a fond hope that General 0. 0. Howard, the 
Christian soldier, named the Havelock of our war, will not forget 
my intercession with the Secretary of War, or the Freedmen's 
Bureau and its commissioner. 

The following excerpts from a reconstruction speech, are deci- 
sive as to my radical convictions : 



Sir, we are acting in sublime concert with the peoples of the world now over- 
turning the wrong and remodeUng institutions as never before to insure popular 
rights. The plea and demand for suffrage has the charm of an inspiration and is in 
alliance with the power of Omnipotence. It gives that charmed eloquence to 
England's great reformer which sways multitudes like the forests bent by storms, 
and rocks the chief power of Europe to its base. The victorious arms of Prussia 
have enlarged the sympathies of her nobility, and the liberal ideas of King 
Frederick William have given universal suffrage to his Germanic dominions. 
Spain, in preparation for this boon, assures a free education. Alexander of Russia, 
more considerate than the late "patriarchal masters" of our Republic, builds 
school-houses for those born in slavery and gives them a homestead. Bold and 
timely action in behalf of our states will send cheer to millions in the old world ; 
while a deferring of impartial suffrage will leave our people of the boasted "free 
Republic " beneath the subjects of king or autocrat. * 



156 REMINISCENCES OF FOBTY YEABS. 

" Let us alone," they cry. That has heen the criminal's supplication in all 
time. " Give us peace and guano," they ask. No, that is not their great want, 
but the humility which is one of the first evidences of sorrow for crime and the 
humanity which will raise up the lowly who have been the victims of their des- 
potism. To become coequal members of our political family they must open their 
eyes upon the party wrecks, the strewn and broken timbers which tell of the 
ignorant conservatism of captain and pilot. Conservatism ! That of to-day offers 
neither a retreat for the man nor a pledge for the growth and virtue of his party. 
The idolaters of fossils, who on all occasions and with prolonged speech shout 
Constitiition are akin to that class described by the Virginian who declared unwit- 
tingly that when they said Union they meant nigger three times. They propose 
to save nothing good which is really endangered ; and having intrusted their loco- 
motion and pi'ogress to that very conservative steed, with eyes turned backward to 
his load and a facility for breeching labor rather than with the collar they make 
only such down-hill strides as are easy and convenient to that memorable abode of 
the chief conservatives of our time, the slough of despond. All compassionate 
generals, sparing of ammunition, fearful of the temper of their sword — all neutral 
states and political constitutional saviors have their day, and are to sleep with the 
Bourbons of all nations. 

"Will the party that has amid the throes of civil war become strong, heed the 
prejudices of ignorance, fearing its vinous inspiration, and dare to be unjust by 
neglect of those now imperiled who, in great numbers, without the hope of pro- 
motion, went from under the lash and stole away from the slave-pen, or broke from 
the coffee-gang to nurse our sick, pilot our armies, or take their place in the ranks 
of oui- brave soldiery ? Then it will be denied the pleasure of gleaning from these 
fields " where the red rain makes the grass grow " ; then the humble laborers who 
have made our majorities at the polls, remembering that the royal arms of Lilliput 
were an angel lifting a lame beggar from the earth, will retire in sadness and 
abjure your party creed. Those religious denominations, repi-esenting the con- 
viction and zeal of millions, have, in their late annual gatherings, spoken with 
united voice for that comprehensive justice which no constitutional amendment 
now proposed will assure, and the conditions of their future cooperation must be 
our adherence to principle and the recognition of a God in our history. 

Mr. Chairman, I do not despair of the adoption of a safe and radical policy. 
Our long marches and decisive battles have a parallel in mighty civic victories 
which have a voice for the timid. 

" Lowly faithful, banish fear. 

Right onward drive unharmed; 
The port, well worth the cruise, is near, 
And every wave is charmed." 

That clemency of the conqueror to rebels, as shown by president and Congress, 
has brought out a timely development of the proud unsubdued spirit which would 
dictate the terms of restoration. I regard it as related to a wonderful chain in 
God's provinces. Our first Bull Run defeat, which menaced this capital, awak- 
ened the moral sense of the nation to its crimes, and pointed out our dangers and 
duties. It was preparatory to the warning proclamation of President Lincoln in 
September, 18G2, which traitors in arms would not heed, and was followed by the 
loss of slavery, that for which they began the war. And now when they scorn the 
mildest terms of conciliation ever made to rebellious spirits, the question of rights 
and ballots for the long degraded and defenseless, need not be committed to the 
caprice or love of power reigniug with the dominant class. Let history speak with 



EEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 157 

her trumpet tongue from the graves of nations that consented to the degradation 
of their meanest suhjects, and if wise we shall be warned hy the fatal compromises 
made by om- fathers, and now about to shape the destinies of millions shall not 
forget His paternal care of tliose who survived the slavery of Egypt, the perils of 
the sea, and wanderings in the wilderness, in giving them homes, protection 
from enemies, and wise and devoted friends. 

I regard it as a delusion that representation here by the rebel states will 
strengthen or assimilate the nation. Congeniality of spirit is a prerequisite. Let 
the disloyal spirit just evinced at a fair held in this city be exorcised, where the 
ballots for the rebel general, Lee, were as six to one for our great captain. General 
Grant ; let rebel airs no longer on festive occasions drown our national song, and if 
there be a loyal pulsation let it bring out the stars and striiies so long overlain with 
the rattlesnake flag ; unlock the cemetery gates closed against the sable ijatriots 
who would strew the flowers of affection on the graves of their comrades ; bid the 
Lone Star State desist in her demands for the removal of our dead from their 
graveyards, that the dust of "hireling soldiers" mingle not with that of her 
"noble and heroic dead" ; make political preferment in city and county iiossible to 
a Unionist, and, for the time, penitents should detain their sons from the college 
lectures on moral philosophy by ex-pirate Semmes, 



" The mildest mannered man 
That ever scuttled ship, or cut a human throat " ; 

and at least when safe and convenient arrest defiant murderers at large, that the 
cry "I am a loyal American citizen" be no more the signal for a visitation of 
cruelty if he be an American citizen of African descent. 

Demons stood aghast at the cruelties unatoned for endured by our prisoners, 
and hell doubtless waits for the coming of those leaders in rebellion whom we 
seem to have no laws to punish. Strange that they should desire a return on any 
terms, and more strange our leniency, and that we have not met the expectations 
of the country and made impartial suffrage a condition. This withheld, my vote 
for their return will not be given. Never, never ! 

The shame of so-called patriots in opposing the policies of the 
war party should have brought confession, but rather angered 
those who had been defeated at every step. Those amendments 
which were designed to forbid slavery and to protect the poor were 
not supported by the anti-war party. This alone was enough to 
place obstructionists at the North under suspicion as to future 
acts. Not as prodigals, then, did the South come back, but to affil- 
iate with the most dangerous foes of the Union at the North. 
Trade and commerce wanted peace and outvoted flie radicals. 

There was an unholy combination, a purpose to depreciate loy- 
alty and place at the head of the table the McGregors^r conferring 
honor on future dispensers of power. The bugbear of carpet-bag- 
gers at the South was kept up after their offenses ceased. Then 
cry of civil service was taken up by the artful as a species of Phar-' 



•i 



158 REMINISCENCES OF FOETY YEARS. 

asaic cant to aid a few, too cold-blooded for the crisis, to hold the 
balance of power and to care for the few of the clan, a minority 
able to mass their forces in aid of Botirbonism. It was to copy 
England ; keep in the old paths and fill places of trust in disregard 
of party policies and service under the flag. 

It is a part of the history of the last twenty-five years that the 
fears of radical reconstructionists of the war period have been real- 
ized, under the temptations of political power and a morbid idea 
that the elevation of ex-slaves to positions of honor Avould be for 
the degradation of ex-masters. I am not unmindful of a low prej- 
udice North fanning an unholy flame which nothing less than jus- 
tice and the highest dictates of religion will suppress. In 1872, 
joining the liberal movement that nominated Horace Greeley, and 
putting behind me promotion in my own party, I made a conscien- 
tious sacrifice to test and win our late enemies, and I now the 
more regret, in the light of false counts, terror and assassinations, 
that there had not been a territorial probation before an admission 
of states to full fellowship in the family. For reasons which are 
public we detained Utah, knocking for admission. Statesmanship 
would have kept the reins of power with the party that had saved 
the union, until time should blend as equals the sons of those who 
upheld and those who trampled on the flag. 

It is too late to moralize, but not for thanks that a tarift", a 
basis of hope for the soldiers, returned to industrial pursuits, has 
not been destroyed. The wordy goodyism of the southern Gradys, 
when avowing the place of a colored man to be under the yoke of 
sham patriots, does not find a response from those who have 
trusted in the act of Congress which forbade slavery or involun- 
tary servitude in any of the territories of the United States, or on 
any soil of which the nation should hereafter become possessed. 
This greatly embittered the border and democratic representatives, 
while making appeals to the country which only malignity could 
inspire. 

The curtain falls and the second War Congress disperses. Cau- 
tion like fear has given way to rapture. The value of the black 
man as a soldier has been recognized. He has become assured of 
personal liberty and the ballot, by the devices of Congress and 
the passage of the constitutional amendments. A great financial 
scheme and an anchor is found in the national banking system. 
The American protective policy survives the assaults of ex-rebels 



EEIHNISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 159 

and free-traders. Foreign intervention came to an end with tlie 
overthrow of the French in Mexico, and the execution of Arch 
Duke Maximilian. Victories on land and sea drove the " Knights 
of the Golden Circle " into secrecy, placing the leaders in the roll 
of reprobates and in pillory to the scorn of the world. Their favor- 
ite for the presidency received but the votes of the states of New 
Jersey, Delaware and Kentucky, a total of twenty-one votes, leav- 
ing one hundred and ninety-one as Mr. Lincoln's electoral major- 
ity. The most conspicuous members of this Congress were 
re-elected. The rebellion was soon crushed, but there was a sad 
hiatus in the apostasy of Andrew Johnson, vice-president on the 
assassination of Mr. Lincoln, April 14th, 1865. 

THE PRESS REPORTERS. 

As the able press reporters, more influential than many who 
had seats on the floor, are an important adjunct of Congress, they 
fitly come in here for some notice. My sympathy with the men of 
the press has always been strong. Indeed, among my escapes, I 
came near being an editor. Early, after much hesitation, I 
declined a newspaper partnership offered by one who had knowl- 
edge of my tastes. It has been my lot to write the salutatory for 
two newspapers, and a valedictory for one, while freely indulging 
a pen for the airing of my opinions, and pushing on social and 
political schemes, not to mention the calls for contributions by the 
various reformers who have arisen the last thirty years. 

It is the habit of the press to claim that out of very poor 
material it has made conspicuous actors, and that it never has been 
repaid for the blunders it has averted, and the venality of public 
officials it has exposed. I think I could name a score of public 
characters whom the scribblers claim to have* "got up". Long 
before entering Congress, while but a visitor, passing down the 
capitol ground, I heard this colloquy : 

" That speech of yours this morning was the best effort of your 
life, but I thought of some things you could have hung on to it, to 
brighten the points." The M. C. answered, "Glad you think so; 
I had not much preparation and am going out of town. Here, I 
trust you (handing over a gold piece) to fix it up for the Morning 
Globe.'''' I judged it was a cheap but good investment by the 
praise which the speech, revised, brought to the author. He is yet 



160 BEMINISCENCES OF FOETY YEARS. 

alive, too indolent, it is said, to correct liis speeches, but for forty 
years in the line of special favors. 

Popular speech-makers are as rare as born poets or model legis- 
lators, and, when a constituency demands an utterance by their 
member, he must speak ; and then appears, not the man tailor, but 
the professional literary aid, to astonish the readers with the 
speaker's gifts, until then undiscovered. This is not of necessity a 
vicious method in moulding public sentiment, since it is often true 
that a correct thinker, a royal man, often lacks the skill to clothe 
his opinions in their proper garb. 

Time makes new demands. He was once regarded as a genius 
who coiild report a speech in its spirit, before the era of short- 
hand. The great debaters did not indulge in written speeches, and 
the polishing by a reporter was a welcome aid. The newer art, 
which a dull boy with an acute ear can learn, makes less the 
scholar and rhetorician who is a reporter. It is now the question 
who can best grasp the subject, group the headland facts, report 
graphically the actors, and outline future skirmishes and the issue 
of debates. In conversation with Mr. Greeley, I remember that he 
said it was his most difficult task to get the right man to sit in the 
galleries, and one who also had a welcome at the departments to 
find the freshest news. 

From those with Avhom I became personally acquainted I could 
make a list. They would make a roll of claimants to a large share 
of honors, especially in the exposures of the base in politics. If 
an ambition to reach a seat in Congress cannot be gratified there 
is another school of opportunity and service in connection with 
the press. Was it D'Israeli, while a member of Parliament, who 
said, "I am myself a gentleman of the press and have no other 
escutcheon " ? 

Ben Perley PoOr, not long since deceased, was a Senate official 
for thirty or more years, and an amateur Massachusetts farmer, 
while holding a veteran's rank in Newspaper Kow. His conceits 
were pardonable, for he was loyal to his convictions, if seemingly 
intolerant. General S. V. Boynton, of the Cincinnati and West- 
ern Press, had the rare gifts of a Washington correspondent — 
perseverance in a hunt, and a talent for sharp criticism, but not 
always of mature and impartial judgment. 

Dr. George Alfred Townsend Avith the nom-de-plume of "Gath", 
has for a quarter of a century startled the public by discovery, and 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 161 

been feared and berated as the Bohemian of his time. I think he 
commanded the largest pay by the column of any correspondent, 
for his original researches, brilliant sketches and political predic- 
tions as to success or defeat. Levi P. Morton, our Vice-President, 
found in him an elegant biographer and friend, whose rare gifts 
and delineation are known without passing through a forest of ver- 
biage. Mr. John Bigelow of New York, who was a quiet looker-on 
from the gallery in the service of Bryant's Evening Post, later 
became minister to Prance, serving his country with the skill of a 
diplomat, and the i^roUrie, and executor of his personal friend, Sam- 
uel J. Tilden. 

Horace White, after college graduation, became a Senate com- 
mittee-clerk and correspondent in Washington, and later the man- 
aging editor of the Chicago Tribune, especially conspicuous in the 
Liberal Greeley campaign, together with Whitelaw Eeid, and Sam- 
uel Bowles of the Springfield Republican. On the death of the 
poet, William Cullen Bryant, of the New York Evening Post, Mr. 
White became the purchaser of that sheet, amassing a fortune 
while retaining the editorship, with the rank of a severe critic 
rather than a trusted party leader. Colfax of Indiana, Baldwin of 
the Worcester Spy, and Wood, Brooks and Eaymond of New York, 
sent out editorials from Washington, quoted as of high authority. 

Horace Greeley of the Tribxine had the sagacity to select and 
retain as correspondent that accomplished gentleman J. L. Pike of 
Maine, later our minister to the Netherlands. Samuel Wilkinson, 
who married the sister of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, had held for 
many years the pen of a graphic writer, and for twenty years was 
secretary of the Northern Pacific Railway; he was widely copied 
as a skillful delineator of great characters and passing events. 
"Richelieu" was the nom-de-plume of the young Irishman Robinson, 
nearly forty years ago, a severe caricaturist, and taking especial 
delight in "twisting the tail of the British Lion" for the Neiv 
York Tribune. With a residence in Brooklyn, he became a sensa- 
tional democratic member of Congress, where he took little pride 
in his position, and, as he told me, found less pleasure than in a 
hunt for news and the characters whom he could describe without 
a fear of a call to order. His collisions were sharp and frequent 
on the floor. 

"Agate" was the best known, sharp, learned and courteous 
correspondent of the New York Tribune in the war epoch. He 



162 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

found easy promotion to the chair of assistant editor. On the 
death of Mr. Greeley he became a large stockholder and its manag- 
ing editor; and this ''Agate" was Whitelaw Keid, our accom- 
plished minister plenipotentiary to France, whose official service 
has won for him higher honors than the delicate attentions to the 
wants of his countrymen and his elegant hospitality. He magni- 
fied his journalistic oflice in long service as well as in his verse: 

" All, no! to the day-dawn of knowledge and glory, 

A far brighter noon-tide refulgence succeeds, 
And our art shall embalm through all ages in story, 

Her champion who triumphs — her martyr who bleeds ; 
And proudly her sons shall recall their devotion, 

"While millions shall listen to honor and bless. 
Till there bursts a response from the heart's strong emotion, 

And the earth echoes deep with " Long life to the Press! " 

It is now my conviction that no A'^ocation in war time gave 
better opportunities than the reporter's for the mending of weak 
points in our political harness, or the detection and exposures of 
the lapses and weaknesses of public servants. I have no defense 
of mere sensationalism, nor can I deny that some reporters at 
Washington retired rich, and not by legitimate methods. 



CHAPTER XI. 

A Personal Assault — Freedman's Bureau the Occasion ivith the 
Apostasy of Andrew Johnson — James F. Wilson — Freedom of 
Speech — General Bousseau reprimanded by the House — His 
Death. 

A PAINFUL congressional episode cannot well be omitted. It 
throws light on a period of intense bitterness, and was connected 
with the relapse of an accidental president. It is also an exposure 
of the barbarism of slavery, depicted by Jefferson, and is of a 
piece with the cruel inhumanities of later periods. We all are 
interested in the defense of free speech against the assaults of vio- 
lence. There was no ground for the loose assertion of the unthink- 
ing that an unarmed man of peace should, in return, have killed in 
cool blood his assailant. The action of Congress reflects credit 
upon the body, in the infliction of a non-partisan punishment, and 
verifies the sentiment of the wisest, that " He that ruleth his own 
spirit is greater than he that taketh a city ". To the honor of Con- 
gress it may be said that there has been no repetition of a kindred 
assault in the last twenty-five years. 

It is personally distasteful to call up the incidents of an assault 
for words spoken in debate. Still, the hasty public judgment that 
I should have fought my assailant, and, without his apology, taken 
the life of a criminal, required a statement of facts with legitimate 
deductions even after the lapse of twenty years. 

I never saw a man struck by another with a blow in anger until 
I was called to in a friendly voice on the porch of the capitol of 
Washington, and assaulted by a cane in the hands of General Rous- 
seau of Kentucky. He was a pugilist, over six feet in height, 
weighing fully two hundred pounds, and armed with pistols. I 
had not even a pen-knife by me, and was physically unable to 
resent his assault. The sequel will show how fully afterwards he 
was in my power, that heavy drinking was held to mitigate the 



164 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

offense, and that on his death-bed not long after he sent me a 
frank, if late, apology. 

POLITICS THE OCCASION, NOT PERSONAL HONOR. 

It was early in the year 1866, and Andrew Johnson, relapsed 
from professions of friendship for the colored people of the South, 
had become their enemy. The Freedman's Bureau, in charge of 
General 0. 0. Howard, became to ex-slave owners an intense object 
of aversion. Mr. Rousseau had the credit of a membership in the 
"back-stairs cabinet"; also of a failure as a legislator. He sought 
notoriety in another role, and was prominent in the convivial circle 
whereof the president was a disgraceful oracle. He antagonized 
every law which looked to a just protection of the colored people. 
Then there was being made a wider chasm to separate the repub- 
lican party from their accidental president, who turned to mass 
the South, before his bitter enemies, into serviceable political 
cohorts. Denunciation of the ISTorth was powerless to do what an 
assault, on the plea of avenging wounded honor, might effect in 
drawing sectional lines and giving power to Johnson in a dissi- 
pated career. 

This is, in part, the record. The House having under consider- 
ation the bill to enlarge the powers of the Freedman's Bureau, I as 
a member of the special committee and selected to lead in the 
debate, said : " This bill has been carefully considered in commit- 
tee. It is endorsed in its main features by General Howard of the 
Bureau, General Grant and Secretary Stanton." I showed the 
abuses of the colored people in Kentucky and the desperate opposi- 
tion of the delegation from that state, headed by General Rousseau. 
I denied that it was a partial bill, and declared that it was framed 
to reach those in want, even the White Mountain refugees, espe- 
cially the poor and homeless. The long-enslaved were our friends, 
yet had been kind and considerate in long and abject service to 
now cold-blooded masters. Continuing I said : 

It is the Christian duty of this government, as it has been the duty of the 
various philantliropic societies and religious associations, to talce care of these peo- 
ple. At the homes of the sons of the i)ilgrims on our remotest prairies contrihu- 
ions are made for the refugees and freedmen ; and the Society of Friends, who 
have gauged the numbers and wants of these suffering people, hid among the 
mountains in camps and hospitals, have set us an example of fidelity. They could 
not take up arms with a good conscience, yet they were the first in the hospitals 



EEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 165 

and the longest there, refusing to receive compensation, munificent in their quiet 
charities; and now they come to us from Maryland and all our states, asking pro- 
tection for their agents and schools. Their school-houses have heon hurned since 
the sitting of this Congress, and so near to us that the very flames of the conflagra- 
tion might have lighted up this capitol. 

Mr. Speaker, there is to-day devolved upon us — I care not who decries it; I 
will not evade it — a high, solemn and religious duty. We should be worse than, 
barbarians to leave these people where they are, landless, poor, unprotected; and 
I coroa>end to gentlemen who still cling to the delusion that all is well, to take 
lessoD'3 of the Czar of the Russians, who, when he enfranchised his people, gave 
the»3i lands and school-houses, and invited schoolmasters from all the world to 
come there and instruct them. Let us hush our national songs; rather gird on 
sack cloth, if wanting in moral courage to reap the fruits of our war by being just 
and considerate to those who look up to us for temporary counsel and protection. 
Care and education are cheaper for the nation than neglect, and nothing less than 
this bill will meet the demands of statesmanship and humanity. 

I am ready to yield my preferences and co-operate with all sections, knowing 
tbit we rise or fall together in national character. I would have nothing partial 
or sectional, nor by a word or act hinder a state in the march to the noble position 
which her generosity or heroism may give title. To even that state which is so 
unwilling to receive a nation's dispensations to her poor, I would give a proud and 
commanding position among our commonwealths. 

Hear tlie conclusion of an hour's speech I said : " This discus- 
sion is plainly not promotive of the most commendable temper. 
The honorable gentleman from Kentucky, Mr, Eousseau, declared 
on Saturday, as I caught his language, that if he were arrested on 
the complaint of a negro, and brought before one of the agents of 
this bureau, when he became free he would shoot him. Is that 
civilization ? It is the spirit of barbarism that has long dwelt in 
our land; the spirit of the infernal regions that brought on our 
war." 

On a challenge of my statements, I used this language, which 
gave offense ; proposing to extract or qualify it, if not true : 

Mr. Grinnell. History repeats itself. I care not whether the gentleman 
was four years in the war on the Union side or four years on the other side ; I say 
that he degraded his state and uttered a sentiment I thought unworthy of an 
American officer when he said that he would do such an act on the complaint of a 
negro against him. 

After Mr. Rousseau had risen to a question of privilege and 
attempted a denial of the language as reported in the Globe, I said: 

"I give the member the full benefit of an explanation of his 
declaration that he would kill a white officer acting under oath and 
in the discharge of his duty, if that is a less unworthy act than 
to shoot an American citizen of African descent. That may not 



166 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

have been degrading to his state, and whether it was, as I said, 
language unbecoming an American officer is a question which I 
shall refer to the gallant soldiers of the State of Iowa who never 
fought, thank God ! but on one side, and it may properly be 
decided by the code of the first of American generals, and referred 
to the greatest of American captains, the Lieutenant-General of 
the United States.* 

"1 have nothing more to add, only to repeat that my animus 
toward the member was the kindest. I criticised barbarous laws 
and his language from a sense of duty, and I have given his own 
language in justice to him, although he first used the unparlia- 
mentary language toward me, which, as I repeat, I regarded as no 
personal offense." 

The friction between the president and Congress increased, up 
to the time General Rousseau in New York alluded to the member 
from Iowa as ''a pitiable politician", and my rejoinder in ridicule 
and denial of his pretensions in leading Iowa soldiers, is not mate- 
rial. The ''fire eaters" demanded from him a speech or blows. 
He called me to halt under the guise of a friendly voice. 

A TRIAL. 

This being the second offense of the kind in the history of the 
government, a select committee was appointed to investigate and 
report, which they did, the majority proposing a reprimand for 
both. The House vote was a reprimand for my assailant, but none 
for me. 

The special committee for the investigation of the assault by General 
Kosseau upon Mr. Grinnell, held a meeting yesterday. The evidence taken 
conclusively established the fact that Rosseau formally informed one person of 
his intention to attack Mr. Grinnell on Thursday morning, and asked him to act 
as his friend in the matter, but that no less than three persons were present, armed, 
on his side. Two or three persons, one of whom was Colonel Pennybaker of Ken- 
tucky, admitted that they were armed with loaded pistols. This testimony tends 
to show that Rosseau and his party were bent upon bringing on a bloody affair, 
and that had Mr. Grinnell offered the slightest resistance, he would have been 
killed without doubt. 

The following is a statement of Mr. Grinnell before the committee on the 
evening of the 19th : 

As I was passing out of the rotunda I was seized by Mr. Rosseau, who, swear- 
ing, said, "I want an apology." To which I replied, "You are the one to apol- 



♦While the papers were discussing the assault. General Grant said to me, 
" The cowardly assault is reprobated by every honorable soldier, while your criti- 
cism was severe but just." 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 167 

ogize; you began the attack; I have no apology to make." Placing his hand on 
his breast, to draw a weapon, I seized him by the collar, when he struck me five 
or six times over the face with a cane having an iron end, until it was broken. I 
said, "You have assaulted me in the House, but I have no desire to hurt you." 
He said, " You d — d coward, I want to disgrace you." I said, "You cannot do it. 
I only defended myself in debate." He continued swearing, when I said, " If the 
crowd is done with me, I will leave," and picked up a piece of the cane and 
walked away. I was alone and saw him surrounded by friends. I did not resist, 
presuming there was a purpose to assassinate me. I have suffered considerably 
from injuries in the face and on the shoulders, received from the iron point of the 
cane. — Washington Correspondent. 

My treatment of the blustering general was salutary. It ended 
his retort, " When were you in the war ? " and my reply was pleas- 
ing to generals of real fame. Of those who stood up in my defense, 
were the Hon. James F. Wilson, Thaddeus Stevens and Generals 
Banks and Garfield, who spoke against the assaulting party and 
asked for an expulsion. These points were made by Mr. Wilson 
in his arraignment : that there had been in the assault a flagrant 
violation of the constitution ; that honors were easy as to the use 
of language in personality, but the gentleman from Kentucky had 
been wounded and worsted in debate, and had fallen on the shield 
of his military record. Mr. Wilson, amid frequent interruptions, 
carried the house in his arraignment of mock chivalry so fully 
that no one cared to reply; and, on a call for my reproof, there 
was not a member to call for a vote of the house. This was the 
conclusion of his argument : 



" Sir, we have had too much ' impression ' about this case already ; altogether 
too much 'impression'. Instead of being guided by the imprint which the official 
types have made upon the official records of this House, the impressions of gentle- 
men have been resorted to. This is the case so far as the words used in debate 
are concerned. But I am not ready to yield the case to the gentleman from Ken- 
tucky yet. There is one other thing worthy of our attention. After my colleague 
had responded to the gentleman from Kentucky, the gentleman from Kentucky 
sought the floor again to reply. He did reply to what was said on that occasion by 
my colleague, and he closed his reply in this language : 

" ' I hope now that I have heard the last of the member from Iowa. I hope I 
shall never have occasion to recur to the subject again. Whatever glory he has 
gained in this contest I am content he should wear.' 

" Such, sir, was the parting language of the gentleman from Kentucky to my 
colleague. He in effect declared that he desired to hear nothing more in relation 
to the case ; that he desired to have nothing more to do with my colleague. With 
that declaration imprinted upon the records, the member from Kentucky deliber- 
ates for four days — 'expecting an apology,' though he had not notified my col- 



168 REMINISCENCES OF FOBTT TEARS. 

league that he would not receive one ; and closing in the House with the remarks 
I have just quoted, again notifying my colleague that he wanted nothing to do 
with him, the belligerents retired from the field. All was at peace so far as that 
controversy was concerned. ' I won't receive an apology ; I do not want an apol- 
ogy. The storm is over. I am satisfied with Avhat I have made, and if the gentle- 
man from Iowa is satisfied with the laurels he lius won, let him wear them ; I am 
content.' Foui* days passed; and what then do we find? The gentleman from 
Kentucky seeks my colleague on the eastern portico of this capitol, and there 
administers to him a caning — for what? Why, sir, as the record shows, for lan- 
guage used in debate in this House, for which the Constitution which the member 
from Kentucky swore to support and maintain, declares no member shall be ques- 
tioned elsewhere. Now, it may be that there is nothing but sunshine on that side 
of the case ; but I want to know from members whether they are to be driven or 
coaxed away from their duty of maintaining sacredly the privileges of tliis body 
by any sympathy that persons may seek to create here in behalf of the gentleman 
from Kentiicky, who seems to be so abundantly able to take care of himself, and 
who refuses apologies Avhen tendered. Why, sir, from the nature of the discussion 
we have had it seems that in this country no man's character is worth anything 
unless he has been a niilitary man. You may charge a man with being a ' liar ', a 
'mere thing ', ' a pitiable politician ' ; you may use all kinds of opprobrious epithets 
toward him ; he is nobody. But when a gentleman like the gentleman from Ken- 
tucky comes in here from the military service — and whether he performed his 
duty well or ill, I am not going to question — when such a gentleman comes in 
here and uses unparliamentary language like that I have read from his remarks, 
attacking the character of other members of the House, he is to be shielded 
by that immunity which his service in the army throws about him. Sir, I trust 
it will be very long before this House will adopt that doctrine. 

" Why, sir, the character and reputation of a civilian are as dear to him as the 
character and reiratation of a military man are to him ; and when one is attacked 
it is certainly quite as much a provocation for a return of the attack in the body 
where the attack is made as language uttered by another is provocation for the 
military gentleman to change his base outside of this Hall, and make his attack 
there. 

"Now, sir, I have occupied the attention of the House longer than I had 
intended when I sought the floor ; but I desired to present, at least in an imper- 
fect manner, the side of the case to which very little attention had been given dur- 
ing this discussion. I wish, also, before I conclude, to remind the House of the 
circumstances attending this assault. The gentleman from Kentucky had been 
thinking over it for four days. It was a deliberate, malicious assault upon a mem- 
ber of the House for words spoken on the floor. It was not only deliberate on the 
part of the gentleman himself, but his purpose was conveyed to at least one other 
person, whom he invited to be present, and who by some cunningly-devised means 
managed, without formal invitation, to have one other there, both of them being 
armed. The second one testifies that he did not arm himself for the piirpose of 
taking a part in this difficulty ; that he did not know the difficulty would occur. 
But by some means this man Pennybaker, who was notified of the assault, pro- 
cured the attendance of these other innocent men, who did not know anything 
about it. It was strange, but it is true. 

" Now, of course, these parties were all innocent, and this congregating together 
of three or four persons to assault a member of Congress amounts to nothing. I 
suppose, from the course this case has taken, that the privileges of this body 
amount to nothing; that the independence of the representative character, the 
independence of the legislative body of this nation amount to nothing, if you only 



BE3nNISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 169 

have its privileges infringed upon by some gentleman who comes here surrounded 
by military glory such as is claimed for the gentleman from Kentucky." 

Ml'. Allison in finale called uj) the resolution and order of the 
House. Speaker Colfax said : 

" General liosseau : The House of Representatives has declared you guilty of 
a violation of its rights and privileges in a premeditated assault on a member for 
words spoken in debate. This condemnation they have placed upon their journal 
and have ordered that you be publicly reprimanded by the speaker. 

" No words of mine can add to the force of this order, in obedience to which I 
now i^ronounce uijon you its reprimand." 

There are incidents outside of the official debates, and the 
action of the House, to be noticed. I was deeply interested in this 
Preedman's bill, having had interviews with General Grant as the 
head of the army. Prominent colored people, also, and General 
Howard, looked to me as a champion of the bill. In the discus- 
sion in committee of the whole I was chairman a portion of the 
time of the speaker's call, and listened to all the debates. I was 
further pushed to the verge of personalities by the overbearing, 
pompous manner of the member from Kentucky, and the frequent 
boast of his military record and the taunting sneer, " When were 
you in the war ? " This was offensive to real soldiers, who were 
happy in seeing his plumes lowered on the field he had chosen for 
the false estimate of his ability. The remark that ''he would 
shoot a soldier on duty" General Grant assured me was regarded a 
disgrace and unsoldierlike. The civilian, loyal, and on duty at 
home and in Congress, I deemed as honorable, if less noted, as the 
soldier, and the code of ethics and taste which made severe lan- 
guage fit for a general, I regarded as suited to a civilian. Still, 
my peaceful course in Avaiting for the action of Congress did not 
meet the favor of belligerent spirits. I had with the spirit of a 
man, on my way down the avenue, stepped in and asked for a pis- 
tol, but it did not suit me. On entering my lodgings, I met Sena^ 
tor Howard of Michigan, who asked what was the matter with my 
face. And on the reply, "Not much," said he must know, and I 
gave the facts in a few words, saying, '' I will go to my dinner." 
" Dinner ! Shoot him before you eat. It is a cowardly conspiracy 
backed by Johnson and traitors." Soon he came to my side at 
dinner, saying, "I gave you wrong advice, it is too late for vio- 
lence, you cannot afford it. They were drunk, while you are cool 



170 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

and sober." On going up to my room I found Senator Grimes of 
Iowa, Senators Wilson and Sumner, also members of the Iowa del- 
egation, to restrain me from shooting my assailant, which would, 
they said, involve regret, and end in assassination. The time had 
passed to use a deadly weapon, except in self-defense. My Iowa 
friends in the department made me a present of a heavy cane with 
an iron head from a bolt in the historic Monitor, and this I carried. 
By a resolution of the House, the parties in this affair were sum- 
moned before a committee called to meet in a high by-corner of the 
capitol, reached by winding stairs. I was the first to arrive and 
stood alone by the stair, when Rosseau appeared. Seeing me only, 
as, standing over him with the iron-headed cane, he could not 
retreat without exposing himself to a blow which would have 
broken his skull. Standing still, Avhile in my power, he turned 
pale. I said, "I have you in my power, but I will not kill you," 
Not a word further was spoken, and I give him credit for a frank 
relation of the circumstances that I did not use my power and 
advantage to take his life. Great as the provocation was, I have 
always been glad that, though he made one attack upon me, I did 
not imitate him, which I could have done with a deadly blow, in 
safety, when alone. 

General Rousseau, leaving Congress, was appointed an officer in 
the regular army, by President Johnson. While on duty in ISTcav 
Orleans, after two or three years' service, he died. I hear that he 
has a family living, and I would not mention rumors or facts as to 
his career which might be an uncharitable reflection on the unfor- 
tunate dead. While in Ncav Orleans, I met an acquaintance who 
was with the general in his sickness, and learned that when near 
his end, he said he regretted the assault, for while I wounded his 
pride by severe words, he wished to live to make reparation by an 
apology, for 1 had spared his life. 

Pair debate without personalities is a practice to be com- 
mended, however great the provocation to bitter retort. Por many 
years I was throAvn where there was sharp debate, and suspect 
myself of a bitterness, which I must charge to indignation toward 
a cruel pretender. Severe Avords should not be indulged except on 
the greatest provocation, is the lesson of an unhappy affair. I 
would be one in the role of peacemakers, who are on the best 
authority blessed. 



CHAPTEK XII. 

Lincoln'' s War Cabinet — Salmon P. Chase — Edwin M. Stanton — 
William H. Seward — General and President Grant. 

The Emancipation Cabinet I knew well — Mr. Chase, Mr. Seward, 
Mr. Bates of St. Louis, a quiet gentleman of the old school ; 
Montgomery Blair, son of Francis P. Blair, the eminent admirer 
and eulogizer of General Jackson; Caleb B. Smith of Indiana, a 
speaker of ability and local fame ; and Mr. Stanton the War Min- 
ister. Abraham Lincoln, of course, was the great figure who 
humorously describes himself on duty, "Keeping his cabinet in 
order and from quarreling." How little they had in common in 
native endowments, and even less in environment and birth, yet all 
favorable to the attainment of world-wide renown. 

It was in 1861 that I first met the president. Waiting, on his 
request, I took from the marble mantle a volume by Orpheus C. 
Kerr. It was a light, witty burlesque, and, while holding it in my 
hand, Mr. Lincoln said, " Don't judge your friend by that book of 
fun and romance. I read it when my brain is weary, and I seek 
relief by diversion, which this promotes. I have hours of depres- 
sion, and I must be unbent. When a boy, the owner of a bow and 
arrow, I found one must let up on the bow if the arrow is to have 
force. Bead Kerr and then pity me chained here in the Mecca of 
office-seekers. You flaxen men with broad faces are born with 
cheer, and don't know a cloud from a star. I am of another tem- 
perament. But, drop the book, and if the country will get up as 
much fever in enlistments as there is strife for the offices, the 
rebel leaders will soon have a collapse." 

Months later I called, and met his salutation, "How is Iowa; 
with whom did you leave those few sheep (a few thousand) in the 
wilderness ? " " Not much, Mr. President, of shepherd David's 
wilderness — all prairie. Will you please tell me, how did you 
know I kept sheep ? " "I remember men by association, and know 



172 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

you a tariff man and sheep owner by a picture of one of your flock, 
in the United States Agricultural report. It was his Satanic 
majesty, clipping the hog, that founded the old proverb, 'Great 
cry and little wool ' ; but the war demand should make you sheep- 
farmers very happy and patriotic." I soon passed to business, 
which was asking for the promotion of the gallant Eliott W. Rice 
to the rank of brigadier in the army, for heroic service. "What 
does Stanton say ? " he asked. " Nothing, will not even look up 
the papers." "Yes, I know the cases like yours are hundreds, and 
it disturbs him, even my hint that we may move xip the boys and 
encourage enlistments. It is a very delicate question. Don't be 
impatient, but get on the right side of a very good officer." On a 
second call, Mr. Lincoln anticipating me said, " Stanton Avas fairly 
mad on the suggestion of promotion by civilians or members of 
Congress." My answer was, "I base my claim on the recommend- 
ations of superior officers in the field." "You get the facts," said 
he, "and quietly say the president hopes your request will be 
granted." When we next met I was accosted, "Have you not gone 
home yet? Let us walk; I am weary and depressed by many 
things I cannot talk about." After a renewal of my argument in 
behalf of the fourth district of Iowa, and pleading the gallantry 
and number of her soldiers, he said, "I cannot attempt to make 
Stanton over at this stage. You will win, if patient." With a 
nod of doubt, he said with his hand on the knob of the White 
House door, "Have you a slip of paper?" And while resting 
against a column wrote : 

" Sir: Without an if or an and, let Colonel Eliott W. Rice be made a brigadier- 
general in the United States army. 

"A. Lincoln. 
"To E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War." 

He took my hand with a parting good-by and said, " Report, if 
necessary, from the War Office." It is in sequel elsewhere, the 
successful issue in promotion by Mr. Stanton.* 

*From Colonel Byers' history, "Iowa in war times." Hon. J. B. Grinnell, 
on being elected to Congress, insisted that the gallant Col. E. W. Rice, who had 
been promoted for gallantry at Donelson, be made a brigadier-general. Mr. Stan- 
ton refused to talk with civilians on the subject. He would not permit interfer- 
ence with army appointments. Mr. Grinnell still importuned, urged that Rice 
deserved this, that all the officers of his company approved it, wanted it, and that 
Le, Grinnell, personally had come to Washington to demand it. "No use, sir," 



REMINISCENCES OF FOBTT YEARS. 173 

At another visit to the White House, in company with several 
lowans, I called, urging the appointment of Secretary Chase as 
chief justice. Later, seeing Mr. Lincoln alone, he quizzed me 
with questions. ''Are you sure the seat of a chief justice will 
not heighten rather than banish political ambition ? It ought to 
banish it ; so high and honorable a place should satisfy and engross 
any American. Well, you are of good hope on the outside, but I 
must do the right thing in this critical hour." 

Mr. Lincoln was met by the assassin in the theatre, and I 
think it Avas the need of relaxation more than the attractions of 
the stage that made him a witness of the best actors, though he 
was an ardent admirer of Shakespeare. I once said, "Mr. Presi- 
dent, I see that you with some of the rest of us Avere out last 
night." "Yes,- and they said my coarse laugh was very audible. 
Lut what did you think, Grinnell, was the best thing there last 
night? I will tell you what convulsed me." Mr. Lincoln rose 
from Ids chair and stepped out from behind the table, struck an 
attitude, and raised his hand as if in holy horror, " Lord, how this 
world is given to lying." "We had some good war news yester- 
day," he continued, "and I was glad to unbend and laugh. The 



answered the secretary, " your case, sir, is like thousands. "Wliat we want now is 
victories, not brigadiers. We are in a crisis. I refuse, sir, to make a promise even 
to consider the wish of a civilian at such a time. I am sorry. My desk is loaded 
with business ; I must say good-morning." A second call ended as abruptly as the 
first. "No iise in a civilian's talking to me on the subject, sir." "Neither can I 
waive a civilian's rights," added Mr. Grinnell. " Then go to the president," said 
the secretary sliarj)ly. "That would be an offense; my regard for the Secretary 
of War would make that step a last resort." " Get your request granted and I 
will resign," said Stanton angrily. One more trial, and Mr. Grinnell did see the 
president. After returning from a walk and hearing the full details as to Rice's 
strong endorsements, Lincoln asked for a bit of paper, leaned against one of the 
inllars of the White House, and wrote, "Without an if or an and, let E. W. Rice 
of Iowa be made a brigadier-general. A. Lincoln." The bit of paper was handed 
to the secretary. "I will resign," he said, crushing the paper and tossing it into 
the waste basket. Mr. Grinnell was about to go. "Wait," said the secretary, 
smiling for the first time in a month; "wait, Mr. Grinnell; come over and take 
dinner with me." Mr. Grinnell was compelled by engagements to leave the city 
at once, but shortly he was tendered the colonelcy of a regiment. Eliott W. Rice 
was made a brigadier ; was later made brevet major-general and continued what 
he had always been, a brave and competent officer, whose deeds added luster to the 
state. His commission, by mistake, was made out in the name of his brother, 
Samuel A. Rice ; but, as the latter was also being urged for promotion at another 
part of the army, no harm was done. The brothers both got the stars they had 
earned, and both were popular officers, the elder brother giving his life for the 
cause. 



174 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

acting was good, and true to the case, according to my experiences, 
for each fellow tells his own story and smirches his rival." 

Mr. Lincoln was especially considerate of democrats, as I 
learned while calling with a complaint. There was in the Interior 
Department a constituent of mine, who was frequently insulted by 
a department clerk, a real rebel, and the more bold because he had 
a brother, a member of Congress, whom the Secretary would be 
slow to offend. As I opened my grievance, Mr. Lincoln laid his 
hand on my shoulder and said, "Don't ask me to strike so low; I 
have to do with those whom I despise, for we are at war. Demo- 
cratic aid we must have if possible, and I conciliate to avoid all 
friction. There is General McClernand, from my state, whom they 
say I use better than a radical, and the devotees of the dead Doug- 
lass I honor and praise often, as I would have promoted their chief 
had he lived. There is too much of mixing war and party in the 
field, when real fighting out of the trenches would better suit the 
case." I knew he was alluding to McClellan's imprudent advisory 
letter. 

General Fremont's proclamation was, as I had good occasion to 
know, a severe trial to Mr. Lincoln. On the opening of a budget 
of my grievances, he said, "Don't mention them. I meet insults, 
standing between two fires, and the constant blazes of anger. 
Why, not an hour ago, a woman, a lady of high blood, came here, 
opening her case Avith mild expostulation, but left in anger flaunt- 
ing her handkerchief before my face, and saying, ' Sir, the general 
will try titles with you. He is a man and I am his wife.' I will 
tell you before you guess. It was Jessie, the daughter of old Bul- 
lion, and how her eye flashed ! Young man, forget your annoy- 
ances ! They are only as flea-bites to mine. They are serious 
comedy, while I am in the focus of tragedy and fire. You folks 
up on the hill must aid me in placating those congenital demo- 
crats, whom we want to keep fighting for us if they will. We 
must coyly give rope if we have to make a short turn later. I 
remember, of the New York ' Barn-burners ', it was charged that 
to get clear of the rats they burned the barn. We must put up 
with vermin intrusion, to save the barn. By the way, your Sena- 
tor Grimes, I met smiling. The navy is sending up such good 
news I was glad to see his cheer. The croakers are getting hoarse, 
the spies scarce, and the maligners well-known." 

These are a few of the treasured words by one whose grand 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 175 

position in history requires no disparagement of his cotemporaries 
and former political rivals, equal in service and ability if in a 
lower scale of action. The historians of the martyr have placed 
their god on a solitary pedestal, and there should be no inference 
drawn from the frailties of a Seward, Chase and Stanton, that they 
had not grand parts in the drama of war and reconstruction. I 
think them safe, each on his own historic pedestal, and not to be 
clouded by the shadow of their chief. Our grief on his assassina- 
tion was deep beyond expression. For the first time in my life, on 
a bright Sabbath morning, I fainted on the porch of our pastor. 
Dr. Cochrane, on breaking the news of the assassination, and in an 
attempted public eulogy, my personal sorrow and gloom forbade 
audible and coherent expression. 



SALMON p. CHASE, 

the minister of finance, attained a fame kindred to that of the pres- 
ident. I had every occasion to like him personally. He attended 
regularly the Congregational Church in Washington, so long as I 
stood in the pulpit. He would bring his friends, and while by 
profession an Episcopalian and a nephew of Bishop Chase, lent his 
sympathies to the bold progressives of our church. On my leaving 
Washington he sent his regrets, with the hope that there would be 
a free and imtrammeled church at the capital soon, and he cared 
little for the name. On my writing the State Republican Address 
for Iowa, he sent me compliments while Governor of Ohio, which 
served to mitigate regrets that I left Washington under a cloud of 
suspicion because not loyal to slavery. He was a bold man as he 
stood undaunted in the Senate, a great lawyer as shown in his plea 
in ■hhe Van Zandt slave case. Fluent as a speaker he was not, nor 
did he interest the galleries as did Hale and Douglass. It was his 
directness and measured language which carried power, and gave 
confidence to his friends that he had an eminent future. Among 
the guardians of liberty in the Senate and at the social gatherings, 
he was a model gentleman, tall, rotund, comely, with a benign 
countenance and a broad brow. There was dignity in his deport- 
ment, and an air of gravity which forbade rudeness in his pres- 
ence, but not imposing undue restraint. If there was ever a better 
equipment by temperament and natural endowment for a finance 



176 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

minister, or a cliief justice of a great court, that character I have 
not seen draAvn. 

I know he was ambitious, for he asked me, as I complimented 
the national banking law, if I thought it would give him political 
favor in Iowa. " You will see that your cattle and your lands are 
to bring more money. You will find, if we can only have victories 
in the field, that in finance our policy and success will bring the 
enforced admiration of the Avorld." When sitting in the secreta- 
ry's office, he said, ''Don't be afraid to talk frankly." Thereupon I 
mentioned Dr. Bailey's family as that of his friend, whom I hoped 
he would remember. ''Certainly," said he, "and that son I will 
take care of to-day." 

Months later, under a bureau conspiracy to exalt favorites, and 
degrade men who carry a free lance, one of the clerks, a friend of 
mine, was about to receive a stab ; and, on my calling to protest 
that that was one of the things not safe to be done, the secretary 
said, "I will take j'-our advice, without knowing the details, for 
you are my friend." Afterward he thanked me for the advice, 
which was a prevention of a wrong. I knew more of him through 
Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, with whom he was often in consultation. 
They were wholly unlike, but of radical and advanced views. 
They compared notes as students of finance, and parted with the 
hope that McClellan would move, or Lincoln get mad. With arms 
folded, lips compressed, and firmly standing, I saw the man wor- 
thy of the eulogies bestowed upon Necker the Frenchman, and our 
idolized Hamilton ; and during these years, whenever holding a 
bank-bill, with his benevolent face and broad brow engraved 
thereon, I have been moved to revere one who made enlistments 
easy, comforts for the soldiers possible, with victories for our arms. 
I am deaf to the insinuation that he was a marplot, if a severe 
critic of his chief. His radicalism cannot be judged fully, fox'»his 
friends had no power to test it amidst civic strifes and military 
jealousies. 

But, it is asked, did he not in later years disavow his earlier 
professions ? No. He was true to the freedmen ; he was a friend 
of all the great constitutional amendments, silent when the shafts 
from political rivals and detractors were hurled, and in the dis- 
charge of his duties as chief justice without bias, fear or weak- 
ness. "Did you like his presiding at the Johnson impeachment 
trial ? " I am asked. I regretted that he was against the impeach- 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. Ill 

mcnt policy, and that he did not conceal his animAis. It is possi- 
ble, as his enemies assert, that he believed the issue would call 
him into the presidential chair by the aid of democrats. It could 
not. The leaders knew his early history, and there was the record 
of a pure life without a scandal, and the poise of a great jurist. 
And so I leave my friend with the declaration of the late Justice 
Miller, "Democratic politics and presidential slate-makers had no 
use for him, for in my opinion he was incorruptible, and the great- 
est man that ever sat on the Supreme Bench." This was from a 
colleague with a close intimacy of twenty years — a compliment 
for one who found the highest appreciation where best known. 

EDWIN M. STANTON. 

It was a popular belief in the war epoch that to get a hearing 
with Stanton you must become a sycophant or win in a fight. His 
reputation for dispatch in business was no less the admiration of 
the war party than Avas his radicalism an offense to the bourbons, 
while some like Attorney-General Black, Mr. Cox and others, 
insinuated that he was disloyal in speech and a rebel at heart. 
On the contrary Senator Henry Wilson and his class were happy 
over his late loyal conversion, and pointed to acts that were giv- 
ing full proof of the wisdom of Mr. Lincoln's selection. 

Mr. Stanton, standing at his desk, short, broad, with smooth 
brow and long, dark beard nervously stroked, was a study. Two 
and sometimes three clerks were required, taking down directions 
and orders for business as the visitors came up in single file. 
Compliments and smiles were waived, while occasionally there 
would be an invitation to tarry in the next room after congressmen 
had found a hearing. The sequel to my conflict in a struggle in 
behalf of Colonel Rice's promotion was a most warm welcome, and 
I cannot deny the justice of others' experience, that he was gall to 
enemies, honey to friends. A bill had just passed which opened 
the way for a recast of officers and additional appointments in reg- 
ular service by Mr. Stanton. At an early day I was in the next 
room, but with the door ajar could hear the members, including 
my colleagues, asking for appointments. The reply would be 
'=No", or an evasion. After the crowd had passed, I appeared 
and said I had overheard and assumed it was no time to ask favors 
for my constituents. His answer was, "Did I ever say anything 



178 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

but yes, to you, save once ? What do you want ? Colonel, take 
down Mr. Grinnell's requests." They were Captain C. V. Gardner, 
to be captain in the regular army ; George B. Hogan, paymaster ; 
the grandson of Mr. Hawley of Ottumwa, cadet at large." "Any- 
thing more ? " said Mr. Stanton; "your requests shall be granted"; 
and the appointments were made. This will suffice in proof that 
time has found an estimate of one neither boor nor beast, bearing 
more than a load for Hercules. Pleasantly would he talk of 
Quaker birth, and studying law with Senator Tappan of Ohio, and 
being as much of an abolitionist when a law-student as the Tap- 
pans of New York. Good news he was swift to impart, up to the 
line of official privacy, to his friends. He was not tardy in extol- 
ling favorites. Joseph Holt, who exposed the "Knights of the 
Golden Circle", had a good word from the war secretary. Matt 
Carpenter, senator from Wisconsin, was his favorite in the legal 
profession for a specific case, for, said he, " He has dash, persist- 
ency and an heroic spirit, which captivates and wins like an astute 
genius." Of Henry AVard Beecher he was very fond, saying, 
"You see your friend and mine goes to Charleston when the old 
flag goes up on Sumpter again. I knoAv you will like his going, 
for the public had made the choice without the formality of vot- 
ing. The first preacher of his time, the orator who subdued the 
British Lion, is the man to speak — one who honors the flag and 
honors his race." 

Such in dim outline was the iron man of the cabinet and the 
organizer of victories. That he was quick in temper, desperate in 
his hates, there is abundant proof. He was a keen detecter of 
shams and had the open heart of a lover in treatment of those true 
to their convictions and heroic and loyal in the field. Success 
became an inflaming passion, and timidity his aversion. " I have 
never despaired," said he, " in the dark hours, nor do I allow 
myself to read the stabs of knaves and cowards, whom I have 
been compelled to place under the ban of condemnation. I have 
my days of depression and don't know how long I can endure it 
here." It is true his days after retirement were few, but he was 
not, as his enemies aver, a suicide. Doubtful acts are to be meas- 
ured by a call for desperate remedies. So will the honor of 
the great secretary be unchallenged by the biographer of the 
future. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 179 

WILLIAM H. SEWARD, GOVERXOR OF NEW YORK IN 1837. 

Senator William H. Seward was from my boyhood romantically 
admired; he was one of the idols of young men. He had been a 
leader, and while temporarily out of the public gaze was earning 
fame as an able patent lawyer, and otherwise, as in the great crim- 
inal railway conspiracy by farmers in Michigan. 

In 1846, the case of the colored man Freeman, who was the 
murderer of several persons in Auburn, New York, brought out 
the astonishing resources of Mr. Seward, not less than bravery in 
defense of one whom all execrated, but whose brain was found, on 
post-mortem examination, to have suffered from an old injury. 
The defense set up was the famous one of "moral insanity". In 
company with Mr. Wilder, a law student, I was a fortunate list- 
ener to his free office talks in the evening, when relaxing after 
court hours. "Prince John" Van Buren was the attorney-general 
in prosecution, in regard to whom Mr. Seward said, he would art- 
fully draw out more law and opinions by doubts, than his habits 
and the industry of a genius could otherwise gain. All Mr. 
Seward's arguments and speeches bore the marks of close study 
and a fine mind in grasp of great themes. 

Natural gifts, culture, forecast as a statesman, persistence, prob- 
ity, with an honorable ambition, made him senator, and like the 
morning star of hope in the presidential race of 1860. The most 
unprepossessing figure in the chamber — thin, pale, eye-sunken, a 
retreating forehead hidden by a shock of dishevelled hair, voice 
high-keyed and almost repulsive, said to have been impaired by the 
use of snuff— this was the first impression of an actor, grand in 
rhetoric, learned, philosophic, undaunted, not only the oracle of a 
great state, but the prophetic voice of a nation. He takes the 
floor, clenching the chair with one hand — the other seldom 
raised — Avith the calmness of Plato and the spirit of Girondist, 
for a strictly impersonal speech enlivened neither by incident nor 
story. The page boys are hushed and fire-eaters pay the tribute of 
attention to one in whose manner there is the composure of a vic- 
tor and philosopher, the bold challenge of a denial. 

Webster in cool derision styles the slavery agitation only a 
"rub-a-dub". Seward announces "an irrepressible conflict" — the 
talismanic truth of a great epoch. Union saviors ask his adher- 
ence to the constitution and an assent that, "What the law makes 



180 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

property is property." He can answer, "The law before which I 
bow is an emanation from the bosom of God." 

The Fugitive Slave Law claims his adherence. When gov- 
ernor, he scouted the perjury of Virginians and the alleged comity 
due to slave claimants on free soil. Now must he become the 
agent of oppression? ISTo — "I defy the mandate, and accept the 
penalties of treason." Thus in 18.50 he struck the highest note in 
peaceful rebellion, and made the North unsafe ground for hunting 
escaped slaves. "There is a higher law than the Constitution," 
was his plea. In vain he urged the impolicy of a statute sure to 
incur the odium of the world. 

Why not president? Mr, Seward led all candidates at Chi- 
cago in the support of the press and leading partisan, but there 
were wings to the party; all conservatives on the border had a 
vote. Horace Greeley, since the formal dissolution of the firm of 
Seward, Weed, Greeley & Co., had favored a Western man without 
political scars, and Mr. Weed was the assumed advocate of Mr. 
Seward's nomination, but had the voice of Jacob with the hand of 
Esau. I give a fact, whatever the conclusion. I was a delegate to 
Chicago, fully advised of the part New York was to play with her 
seventy votes and dramatic announcement of the train of cars to 
be loaded with all the devices and displays of art, and a sumpt- 
uous outfit, where Moses H. Grinnell and Governor E. T>. Morgan 
■were jointly commissariat and captain. 

Business calling me to New York, I was quite ready to be one 
of the party on the westward trip. When going East I called at 
Auburn and, as Mr. Seward was just leaving for New York, I 
became his company. To my inquiry as to the situation the 
answer was, "The skies seem clear — Mr. Thurlow Weed I am to 
meet at Albany, and he will talk with jow freely." Mr. Weed I 
quietly interviewed to further strengthen my faith in Mr. Seward. 
My ardor was soon cooled — the so-called slate-maker, a very War- 
wick in our politics, was courteous, and seemed to be weighed 
down in spirit. " I tnuch dislike to have Mr. Seward, the great 
man of the nation that he is, lean on me. Greeley is on a rampage, 
and an availability is the cry of the West. We must have the 
next president to save the country — our party took Taylor for 
victory, and the democrats won with Pierce, for there was nothing 
known about him. Now this is not for the public or even for 
your own delegation ; it is a grave question whether the greatest 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 181 

and most conspicuous man of the nation is the best candidate to 
win. The Jotcrnal knows but one candidate, but serious confiden- 
tial advice is another thing."* I always pitied Mr. Weed in his 
personal conflict — devotions vs. politicians. 

I returned from New York to my home alone rather than in 
the crowd as a guest of the Seward company, involving an allegi- 
ance which I could not avow by my vote. Was Mr. Seward less 
in the esteem of his country, wounded in the house of his friends, 
afterward secretary of state and the optimistic yet great diplomat 
of the war era ? Not to me. I saw him in 1850, calling on Mr. 
Henry C. Bowen, the merchant that advertised that " he had goods 
for sale, and not principles ". I further recall that he said the 
firm whom I honor had made a speech more courageous and wider- 
spread than that made by any senator. If devotion is the meas- 
ure of the virtue of an idol, then the griefs for Mr. Seward were 
the sublimest of human tributes. I met Mr. Moses H. Grinnell at 
the Tremont House, with his face covered, sighing audibly, "We 
are beaten," and his company were like him, only able to utter, 
"The greatest of Americans has gone down before treachery." 
Five years passed, the witness of service as secretary of state in 
the highest position of honor. The maimed veteran, with face 
mutilated by the blows of a coward on the fatal night of the assas- 
sination of Mr. Lincoln, I recall, and the offer of the Virginia rebel 
of fifty thousand dollars for his head. He makes a voyage of the 
world, to gain the homage of nations, and honors which politicians 
had denied at home, and ended a life of probity, with the career of 
a statesman having the vision of a seer and the soul of a patriot, 
in the rural seclusion of his home in Auburn, New York, in 1872, 
enjoying the loving ministries of his family and awakening a 
nation's grief. 

GENERAL GRANT. 

The great soldier and president has found so many eulogists 
that I condense my acquaintance in an extract from a newsj)aper 



*It is said that Mr. Seward came to doubt the loyalty of his friend. They 
were riding in Central Park, New York, in presence of the statue of Lincoln. 
Mr. Seward said, " "Weed, if you had been true to me, I should have been on the 
pedestal." "Would you prefer to be alive or dead, with your head in bronze up 
there? " was Weed's answer. 



182 EEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

interview, and my appreciation of the patriot in passages from a 
eulogy before the Grand Army of the Republic, at his death : 

The following interesting reminiscences were brought out in an interview with 
Hon. J. B. Grinnell, who knew Gen. Grant personally. In reply to a question, he 
said: 

" Hon. E. B. Washburn, M. C. from Galena, had more to do with his gaining 
position for military and civil power than any person living, and on resigning a 
cabinet position as Secretary of State had a distinguished career as minister to Paris 
in the time of revolution and war ; yet for some reason not known to the public, 
Grant, the protege, and Washburn, a political Warwick, were not in the last ten 
years in social and loving accord ; but of the occasions for this it is no time to talk." 

Under Avliat circumstances did you see General Grant ? 

" It will involve a little personality, and my neighbors and good fortune gave 
me opportunities, and I will answer: I first met the general with a request that he 
should give James F. Wilson, now our senator, a place in his cabinet. He said I 

could talk with Mr. , but there was no need of any state or political expression. 

The second meeting was in the White House, after his inauguration, with this 
message to him as he met me and we looked out of the window, ' I know Wilson 
has declined to go into the cabinet on the ground of poverty, but I have engaged 
that house ' (to which I pointed) ' on the square, as a friend and citizen of Iowa, and 
hope it will aid in meeting his objection, if not too late.' The reply was, 'I am 
very sorry you were not here early this morning. I set my heart on having your 
friend Wilson near me, but he declined three positions, and the secretary has just 
left for the Senate waiting for the names of cabinet sent for confirmation. Too 
late! too late! I regret to say.' 

" Until then I did not know that more than one place had been tendered, nor 
was I aware of all the diplomatic talk incident to the occasion. 

"The third occasion was when the president was signing commissions, and I 
was about to leave for Iowa. He said, ' You have not been in to see me as I asked 
you.' ' No,' I replied, ' the last thing you want is more company, and by the press 
you can't please half who do come.' 'That is true, and I shall be called a dull, 
slow politician. Iowa complains, I presume, and I want to know about some 
things.' 

"At this point an artist was announced, who was touching a portrait, and was 
ready for a sitting. ' Come along,' said the general. ' We can talk while I am the 
victim. It is one of the penalties for notoriety that I would swop off without a 
word.' 'Talk on,' said the artist, 'the more vivacity the better,' and Grant was 
the ' silent man ' no longer. 

"'Grinnell, do you know what you had to do in bringing my troubles on? 
Washburn said, the other night, as we talked over political events, that you were 
the first man in the halls of Congress that mentioned me as a possible candidate for 
president, but it was no real kindness.' I could only answer that, 'When Wash- 
burn so often shouted General Grant, with a very emphatic broad, long a, that I 
was for the man who came out ahead, and did not care for his politics, and being 
badgered by democrats to name him, said amidst some applause, that it was this 
hour Grant, and to speak frankly, I was afraid you would be captured by the demo- 
crats; so very many I could name.' (The colloquy is in the Congressional Globe, 
and after near 20 years, I forget the details). 'I have,' said the general, 'heard 
that before, as to the fear of a democrat, if I had any politics, but the scare is all 
over.' Then he launched off on horses and Indians, saying, 'Every reservation 
was deemed a paradise and coveted by white men, but they were as a rule over- 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 183 

rated ; not half as good soil as Illinois or Iowa. You are leaving Congress, what 
do you expect from the administration?' 'Nothing,' I answered. 'For near ten 
years I have been in state and national service, and have a family and cares at 
liome, and you will not have places for all who want them.' 'Don't you know 
that the senators have you in mind, and have asked me to wait,' etc., etc. ' It is 
news to me, and on my account there need be no delay. If I can get favors for 
friends, let me be a cipher.' 

" Tiie rest I will not mention, and would not this had it not been said, when 
for the next term I was for Greeley, that I was offended, it not being true, as Sena- 
tor Harlan and many others know. 

" The fourth meeting was at Des Moines, at the Army of the Tennessee meet- 
ing, I think in 1874. There was a grand greeting in the parlors of the Savery 
House, but I was not in the house, remembering the active part in the Greeley 
campaign, and that a Chicago paper had made me say harsh things of the general, 
never spoken, and that he asked an Iowa man what was the matter with me when 
he knew no cause for my course, to gain this reply: ' Greeley had long been a par- 
ticular friend.' Still I am ashamed, not of my company, politically, at that time, 
nor of my words, but that I distrusted and feared coldness from one who met me 
half way across the room with a cordiality that was marked by the company, and I 
confess was an embarrassment, added to which was a compliment later to my din- 
ner speech on The Navy. Pardon this, but it was an incident which stamped the 
great hero as one of the most generous of mortals, and brings him near to my heart 
in grateful emotion. 

"I cannot help the conviction, that he would have been a grander figure in 
history if president 07ice, rather than a second or third term candidate. That I 
think was liis private opinion, and of non-partisans the world over. Still his life 
stands for courage, simplicity and patriotic devotion. No American had such 
favor by circumstances in military and civil life, and with one acclaim he will find 
honor with "Washington, for he was not venial, nor coarse in speech. In later 
years he abjured profanity as vulgar, strong drink as corrupting, and held implicit 
faith in the value of religion as divine, and our debt of gratitude to a common 
Saviour he acknowledged." 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 

Towers are measured by their shadows, and the resounding crash tells of the 
fall of the majestic oak. Did ever the raven wing of mourning cast so dark and 
broad a shadow, or the fall of a mortal send so deep a sigh around the world, as the 
demise of Grant, the nation's idol? 

Soldiers of the Grand Army ! You have peculiar pride in a comrade, and none 
shall chide you for tears and a kinship in idolatry to the worship of a God. Alex- 
ander, the Grecian warrior, moulded but six hundred thousand men less than the 
army your great captain vanquished. The Roman Csesar clouded his fame by the 
destruction of a million of men in conquest ; Grant commanded a million for union^ 
with the genius of a soldier and the heart of a peacemaker. Greatest of tlie 
marked figures in military service were either slain for their ambition, a prey of 
corrupting vices, or escaped dying like a hermit, or banished to solitudes where 
only moaning winds and dashing waves voiced in sad refrain the shouts of con- 
quest, while it is left for you to admire and mourn one whose later life was a climax 
in the silence he won ^rom foes; a world's applause, and the brave endurance of 
disease, and the calmer, bold meeting of the King of Terrors, from the mountain 
height where the weary sjurit ascended to its home in the bosom of God. 



184 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 



A MISJUDGED HEKO. 

I have pleasure in the recollection of voting in Congress the gold medal, and 
to create the rank of lieutenant-general, only held by Washington, for Grant; yet 
language fails me in fit mention of the envious, cool maligners of his fame, those 
carpet knights and military shams of doubtfiil loyalty, feigning the scream and 
flight of eagles, while noisy, hungry and of evil omen. We were regaled with 
slanders specific and distinct as the odors of the famed city of Cologne, while com- 
rades were silent, and the great soldier-president was too busy and too great for an 
abasement in denial. I, with thousands of his party, would not, did not, question 
his generalship, yet deemed his administration personal rather than broad — his 
associations more repulsive than inspiring. We were ignorant of the man. The 
reports of his coarse texture as a mortal, profane speech and intemperate habits, 
had made the circuit of the world, with all the gross, morbid begettings of false- 
hood. I bow my head in confession of ignorance, and of an honest but unfair 
judgment of his personal worth, gladly to join in the praises of clouds of witnesses, 
to aver he adorned those virtues in which he was held to be wanting, and emerged 
from the passing cloud to shine brighter, as do the lights of heaven for temporary 
obscuration, and like a sun our hero will shine in the radiation of cardinal virtues 
through the ages. 

Confiding boldness was the key to minor faults, and the grand solution and 
secret of supreme power. Character in the soldier he read like an open book, and 
dared to trust. Generous in praise for corporal as for captain ; cordial and gallant, 
returning the sword of the vanquished Lee, a new leaf was added to the page of 
chivalry, and a character you search for vainly in the Iliad of Homer or in the 
annals of modern warfare. The cautious have only lean virtues, and in war are 
allied to- show, and sink with mediocrities. They are the old side-judges, wise 
only in their silence ; pulpy and fair in the shade, but clever, pompous negations. 
This was not Grant in robust manhood. He feared neither petty thieves, the 
assassin's bullet, nor the rising fame of a ranking general. A silent tongue left 
his fame to the candor of the world, and warm blood pulsated in his mission, leap- 
ing like a cataract rushing to the ocean. Like a Cromwell, he trusted a God "to 
cover his head in the day of battle" — never planned for defeat, but for victory, 
sounding the trumpet-call from Cairo to Richmond — forward ! forward ! 

My countryman, with bold actors, God's confiding agents, there may be seem- 
ing errors, bvit they are forgotten at the tomb, and it were as profane in their men- 
tion to-day, as the illusion of Washington that Arnold was a patriot, or that the 
traitorous kiss of Judas discredits the purity of the world's Savior. 



A PROVIDENCE. 



The world can add to its providential deliverers, Gustavus Adolphus, Wash- 
ington, Cromwell and Moses, another wondrous personage under the divinity that 
shapes national existence. What agonies for his coming, in camp, amidst prison 
horrors, city mobs and wasting credit! I saw the General McClellan, skilled in 
entrenchment, and in grand jjarades. Into the face of the gallant Hooker I looked 
to discern the dashing eye under too narrow a brow to gauge the campaign. The 
hand of Burnside we took in sorrow as he, with modest distrust, threw aside a 
commander's commission. Who next? Th ; voice of the great war minister and 
the wisdom of Lincoln pointed to the hero of Donelson and Vicksburg; late an 
obscure clerk and poor wood-chopper, now to guide our destiny. He is a dull stu- 



EEMIXISCENCES OF FOBTY YEAES. 185 

dent of Providence who does not see him held back and in reserve for the blows 
that destroyed slavery, an armed rebellion, collossal in malignant power, and for 
stern splendid statesmansliip, on the death of the martjT Lincoln by the assassin's 
bullet. 

We were drifting like a dismasted ship on the breakers. Victories in the 
"West were countei-balanced by rebel success in the East. Drafting was resisted, 
soldiers were discouraged. The great powers of the earth were in secret league 
with our enemies. Repudiation threatened the national credit. Oh ! what gloomy 
forebodings of border warfare blackened by pillage, the cdmes of assassination, 
bloody insurrections and a race war, with the woes in apocalyptic vision, "blood 
flowing to the horses' bridles." 

WHAT CAME ? 

The virtues and blessings of peace can never be pictured but in faintest out- 
line, in praise of our dead chieftain. A million soldiers returned to their families; 
slavery dead; thirty-eight gi-eat states revolving like planets, smoothly in their 
orbit, not twenty-eight weak in dissension and barricaded for war. American, sig- 
nificant of unity, renown and jjower. A home where three i)er cent, bonds are at a 
premium, as in the great money marts, our credit leading all nations. Of a people 
rising from wealth in the sum of sixteen thousand millions of dollars in 1860 to 
fifty thousand millions in 1885, and surpassing in growth of population in each 
post-bellum decade every rival ; the envy of monarchs. 

The (?x-president becomes a guest of the nations. How responded and bore 
our guest ? In cultivation of fraternity which gave lis fifteen millions by arbitration 
from England. Asking not for his country honor by prowess on the sea, nor a 
standing army, rather one hundred millions annually to the families and soldiers 
sick and maimed by war. Our free church and free schools were held up as our 
crown jewels, with the fervor of an advocate. 

There was unfolded in later years a personal character more to be admired 
than a public career at home or abroad. He was greater in poverty, and facing 
the storm of detraction, as he who rules his own spirit is greater than he who taketh 
a city. Then the knowledge of fatal disease brought no murmur. " Self-schooled, 
self-scanned, self-honored, self-secure." Mortals could not add to his renown. 

Friends, behold the silent, pale, great captain! He has given testimony to 
the value and divinity of the Christian religion and bravely welcomes his last 
enemy, the " King of Terrors". Mightier than the famed shield of Achilles is his 
protector, bearing the loves of this world, and awaiting the welcome of patriots and 
comrades, Lincoln, Rawlins, Reynolds, McPherson, Thomas, and a cloud of gallant 
spirits passed before. The glow of the camp fire is dimmed in the brightness of 
the coming of the great deliverer for whom the lips move, and the voice breaks 
forth in praise. That spirit invincible on earth, is at rest in a higher realm — it is 
the peace of God. 



CHAPTER XIIL 

Thaddeiis Stevens — Schuyler Colfax — John A. Logan — Gratz 
Brown — David Davis — Henry S. Foote — Jefferson Davis — 
Gen. Winfield Scott — Henry Clay — Daniel Webster. 

THADDEUS STEVENS. 

It is unusual for men of mark to obtain their just rank while 
living. Mortuary service is fittingly sympathetic, adulatory; but 
stirring, fierce partisans mould events which conspire to delay a 
just verdict long after the death of the actor. 

Since the death of Thaddeus Stevens there has been ample time 
to temper the praise of ardent admirers, and to blunt the shafts of 
enemies. Having enjoyed the favor of his friendship, and rare 
opportunities to know him in the national House of Representa- 
tives during the late war, I attempt with the admiration of a 
friend to compress ample material for a volume into this article in 
vindication and illustration of a great character. 

Did not our last quarter of a century, fruitful of forces, pro- 
duce one great American commoner ? The British House of Com- 
mons may represent our House of Representatives, from which 
only a leader in alliance with popular measures, an American com- 
moner, may spring. Mr. Blaine in his eulogy on Garfield before 
Congress, so justly praised, cites three parliamentary leaders, Mr. 
Clay, Mr. Douglass and Thaddeus Stevens. Generosity to one of 
another political school, it is fair to infer, moved to the naming. 

He graduated at Dartmouth College, Kew Hampshire, not far 
from his home, and was soon engaged as a teacher in the Academy 
at York, Pennsylvania, for which position his discipline, clear per- 
ception and enthusiasm made him of service in giving impetus to 
many students, later conspicuous and able in the higher pursviits 
of life. No one had a higher contempt for the exploits of a mere 
genius or the profundity of mere impromptu speeches, which had a 
preface in boast of ignorance of books. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 187 

A mind trained by thought, severe study and wide reading, 
made him invincible in debate. Taking evidence in trials of great 
importance, he rarely made notes ; for his memory was tenacious, 
nor was he ever confused with a manuscript, save in the prepara- 
tion of state papers and the drafting of bills. Having derived so 
much aid from a classical education, he was the friend of the col- 
lege and patron of poor students, struggling and weary on the road 
he had traveled. 

In person the Commoner had a shrug to the shoulders that sug- 
gested a push of the head from a graceful position. The club-foot 
forbade facile locomotion and dwarfed the whole man save brain 
and imprisoned vivacity. He had an ambition at war with the 
restraints of sedentary life ; business was rest, and fox-hounds a 
diversion in the chase of a bold rider. That head, in later life, 
covered by a sandy wig, was a study — wide and bulging above 
the ears, high in front, prominent above the eyes, which were deep 
set and radiant. The facial muscles were strong, and a broad chin 
sent up lips, the lower projecting, that Avere an index of a character 
determined in rejjose, and to be dreaded for their uses in those con- 
tests where giants drew upon every weapon at command. 

With humorous reply he would say, My organism is not favor- 
able to retreat, and must leave to my friends the honors to be 
won by the arts of locomotion backward. There was no native 
melody in voice ; it was on a high key, capable of winging sarcasm 
and scorn with stinging effect on a venturesome opponent. To a 
critic of legislators there was galling autocracy in his leadership, 
and a verdant legislator would seek by artful attack to question 
the veteran's right to lead; but there is no record of a second 
attempt by the same person. " I hope," said he, " I may be cred- 
ited with virtuous silence on this occasion; let the wounds made 
by the gallant foe, wide, gaping, plead my cause " ; which conveyed 
sarcasm effective above any formal reply ; still there was alertness 
in a question of motives or war policy, and always a victor who 
left the impression of a courageous, learned and adroit leader of 
men in the seas of strife. 

Legislative tricks were his great aversion, and justice and full 
credit to his adversary was his shield in the forum of debate. 
This called for compliments, and led him to ask an opponent if it 
were not a better policy "to proceed with arguments, if lie had 
any, rather than sickening his chosen victim with honey ". Fail- 



188 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

ing to vote, or questioning a majority edict, brought sucli glee to 
democrats that in the midst of the plaudits for a brave man, lie 
shouted, " I can stand reproaches, but the praise you bestow has an 
offensive odor." 

Petty points were his great aversion, holding that the smallest 
of mortals were equal to an objection or a technicality; and order- 
sticklers were the least reliable when true men were in demand. 
"There was an hour lost in a wrangle over order and the manual 
which a school-boy of common sense might have settled, I hear, 
but I slept in blissful ignorance and am ready for business if the 
skirmishers will allow it." 

Contested election cases were treated as a side show, settled as 
a rule by the political complexion of the jury, but so often had he 
broken from party moorings that fervent appeals were made for 
heliD. "jSTo, no — I cannot speak, when we come to vote." 
"But," said the pleader, "he is a scoundrel." "They say the 
other is," was the reply, "and I must know which is worse. Don't 
count me Avliere I judge you have more than a legal quorum." 

He Avas a trusted guide in storms, which neither pacific policy 
nor compromise could avert; a constructionist and blender of a 
nation, riven by sectional strife and the crime of slavery. Clay, 
with the rarest endowment of an orator, closed his grand life in 
tender, yet unavailing persuasion. Douglass piloted the party ship 
on a rock, "squatter sovereignty," and was only kindly spared to 
counsel loyalty to the flag before his lamented death. In nature 
the "triumvirate" had little in common save obscurity of birth. 
Their providential mission, too, was unlike ; the times determining 
for the earlier sages the role of conciliation in the way to the pres- 
idency, while eternal right and the subjugation of traitors was the 
absorbing thought of Stevens, regardless of smiles or frowns. 
Thus it was that he was fitted by education, converse with men 
and undaunted courage, to spring to the front by the only divine 
right known to man, when rebels were confronted in speech, 
national credit maintained, amidst the clamor of party aspirants 
and untold wastes in war. Hence he was for many years a trusted 
leader holding without a peer supreme control in the republic. 

The eccentricity, brusque manner and witty sayings of Mr. 
Stevens enveloped his character in a cloud of prejudice and made 
his name a conduit, for years, of doubtful story and legend; 
because of which he is to-day judged at a disadvantage. To be 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 189 

specific, lie was thouglit to be wanting in refinement ; coarse, a 
stranger to generous emotion, malignant without reverence, infidel 
and blasphemous. 

These are allegations, alike unjust and cruel in the light of the 
late and early history of the poor orphan club-footed boy. Mr. 
Stevens, with filial devotion made an annual journey of hundreds 
of miles to his native Vermont to comfort and support the mother 
of whom he said : " It is the great joy of my life to be able to give 
to my mother a well-stocked farm, and an occasional bright gold 
piece which she loved to deposit in the contribution of the Baptist 
church which she attended. She worked day and night to educate 
me, for I was feeble and lame in my youth. I tried to pay her 
afterward, but the debt of a child to his mother is one of the debts 
we can never repay." 

The child was father to the man, and one of the last acts of his 
life was making provisions in his will whereby the sexton was '' to 
keep his mother's grave in good order and plant roses and other 
cheerful flowers at the corner of said grave every spring". A 
bequest was also made of one thousand dollars toward the estab- 
lishment of a Baptist church to which his mother belonged, near 
the old home, and with this reason : " I do this out of respect to 
the memory of my mother to whom I owe what little of prosperity 
I have had on earth, which, small as it is, I desire most emphatic- 
ally to acknowledge." This is an index to a character of delicate 
sensibility. Of his limited means he paid a surgeon for restoring 
a poor lame boy to soundness, an act Avhich offered so much pleas- 
ure that he enjoined the doctor to treat any poor, deformed, disa- 
bled boy Avhom he should meet, at his expense. On a reverse in 
business partial friends proposed a gift of one hundred thousand 
dollars — a gift delicately declined in further proof of a sensitive, 
rather than of a sordid nature. 

Women, notably the Sisters of Charity, were the largest dispens- 
ers of his charities, whose abundance was known only by the poor 
and their Maker. Pledges were often made when money was not 
at hand. An incident is given by an irreverent friend without a 
personal guarantee of its authenticity. It is the story of gain of 
money at a game of chance. When nearing the capitol the party 
was accosted by the ladies holding his pledges, whom he surprised 
with a roll of bills, saying with a smile, " God moves in a myste- 
rious Avay his wonders to j^erform." 



190 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

Never marrying, his bachelorship, like that of President Bu- 
chanan, was the occasion of many a comment, but often cruel, for 
there is a story of delicate sensitiveness to the allurements of love 
and beauty which has more than a tinge of sad, youthful romance. 
It is of a death that brooded over him with raven wing. The ideal 
beautiful girl at his early home was ignorant of his emotions, and 
passing to and returning from the boarding-school found only a 
formal greeting from him, so great was the disparity in their con- 
ditions^ — ^hers of affluence, his of poverty ; thus he withheld marked 
attentions, and hesitated to proffer his hand until he should have 
gained a name to reflect honor upon a bride. He retained the 
secret, and at length disclosed it, only too late, to the ideal of his 
heart, w^ho, to his great grief was pledged to another, and who 
removed to the old Pine State, where his earliest and latest love 
found a grave. 

The policy of confiscation brought upon him the charge of a 
vindictive spirit. It was this political measure of which Mr. Hor- 
ace Greeley designated Mr. Stevens as the author in his Kichmond 
speech of 1867, in conferring a warm compliment upon him as the 
leader of his party. Congress had sanctioned the law supported 
by precedent and the authority of eminent publicists ; and it is not 
denied the measure was pressed with vehemence as a policy prom- 
ising land to the slaves which would bind them more firmly to the 
Union. 

Abduction and even his assassination had been planned by ene- 
mies at the capitol, the former only averted on a certain occasion 
by the threat of sure death in the city subvirbs if the hireling did 
not halt and return. Andrew Johnson, in a public speech, had des- 
ignated Wendell Phillips, Sumner and Stevens as fit for a gibbet. 
In face of all Mr. Stevens hesitated to frame articles of impeach- 
ment lest he should be judged vindictive. 

The Hon. Mr. Julian in his "Political Recollections", says:' 
''The profane words of Mr. Stevens, always the central figure of 
the House, were frequently carried on the shafts of his wit and 
lost in the laughter they provoked." Facts will discredit this 
judgment, giving another tone and hue to current stories. On a 
recess in the House Mr. addressed Mr. Stevens with an oath- 
laden tongue, to find only a cold greeting: "I hate to be 
addressed with such blasphemy as 'by G — d', etc. I deny that I 
am profane, and for years have held it vulgar, but I do say ' damn ', 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 191 

for the provocations are great. It is war time ; but the counsels of 
luy childhood will not allow me the use of a blasphemous word." 

The great Commoner, if not a saint, was far from an infidel. 

Mr. was introduced, who said: "Mr. Stevens, I believe I 

have the honor of your company as a Free Thinker." "Yes," was 
the reply, " rather free until I submit to your dogma, if you have 
one. My mother was a soft-shell Baptist, a reputable thinker in 
her time, and, as I remember, held the Ten Commandments good 
law and the Sermon on the Mount as orthodox. I am one of her 
poor disciples; good morning, sir." In derision of a speaker he 
said : " How he hugs the delusion of no hereafter ; he would write 
God with a little •' g ', but don't criticise brutal ideas if he has a 
brute's end to match." 

The notorious inebriation of Andrew Johnson brought up Mr. 
Stevens' opposition to the use of alcoholic drinks. " I became ter- 
ror stricken," he says, "on the death of my particular friend, who 
found his way, inebriated, to his home but died in the hallway, 
unable to find the way to his room. Thereupon I demolished 
every keg and bottle of liquor in my cellar. We were in the 
whirlpool together thirty years ago when I made the short turn. 
At the national temperance meeting in the capitol I sent over my 
adherence by Mr. Dodge, and I am complimented, as I see by the 
paper, that my declaration brought out applause. I vote for a 
Mohammedan against drunkenness before an orthodox Christian 
liquor dealer. Slavery's twin — the dram shop — will stir the 
nation next. They come so near to me that I am saddened to 
think of them." 

I could quote many of his memorable sayings, public and pri- 
vate; but none are more eloquent than his choice of burial-place. 
It was sympathy for the poor victims of prejudice, which led to 
the characterization of the exclusion of the colored race from the 
cemetery as an impious act. To strike impressively at this vulgar 
inhibition, he chose a new spot without the odious restriction as 
his place of burial, with this protest to be read on his tombstone 
until time's effacing fingers have abolished his name from marble : 
"I repose in this quiet and secluded spot, not from any natural 
preference for solitude, but finding other cemeteries limited by 
charter rules as to race, I have chosen it that I might be enabled 
to illustrate in my death the principles which I have advocated 
through a long life — equality of man before his creator." 



192 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

SCHUYLER COLFAX. 

This statesman I have briefly mentioned in Chapter IX., but it 
would be unjust to his memory not to speak more fully of him. 
Before his death, we met in Denver, where his sister resides, and a 
more jocund spirit could hardly dwell in manhood, with a rose on 
the full cheek and the elastic step of youth. His devotion to the 
fortunes of Blaine was not more intense than a conviction tbat 
he would be elected and astonish the world with a brilliant 
administration. 

In the year 1863, Colfax was the favorite of the nation, win- 
ning fame as an editor in the West, reclaiming a congressional dis- 
trict, and becoming well-known as chairman of the committee on 
post offices and post roads — alert, incisive in speech, broad in 
policy; a parliamentarian, and upheld by President Lincoln, and 
Greeley, of the Tribune. There was no secret in his elevation to 
the speaker's chair. Favor to Iowa was so marked as to occasion 
remark if not provoke jealousy. Diplomacy in securing positions 
on committees is that of which the great public are but little 
aware. We Avere five new members, and but one — James F. Wil- 
son — knew of service, and that at the foot of the judiciary com- 
mittee, and by good fortmie those once before him were not of 
this Congress, yet a score of "great lawyers" loomed up for chair- 
man and Wilson was to be jumped. Colfax was seen, and Wilson 
presided in war time and reconstruction over the great committee 
of Congress. Did the speaker ever forget Iowa and her new dele- 
gation? Price was made chairman of the Union Pacific Eailway 
committee, Kasson was on ways and means. Later, Allison, Hub- 
bard and the writer were well placed, the latter surprised by pro- 
motion to the places made vacant by the death of Owen Lovejoy. 
It was a feeble return for favor to Iowa that I made, indicating 
Colfax as the name for the prosperous health resort near us. A 
sister with her family came to Jasper county, as farmers, on his 
advice, and when the husband and father, a mail agent, was kept 
from degradation by the humane perception and acts of that most 
able and exemplary gentleman and jurist. Judge Love, who would 
not ask "an insane man to plead in his court", a new bond of 
'attachment was formed, never sundered but strengthened by a 
hundred welcomes on our soil as orator and eulogist of Lincoln. 

By whom did he rise but by himself — an expert journalist, 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 193 

adventuroas overland sta^^e tourist to the Pacific coast, temperate, 
dasning and cliivalrous in debate. He was by nature vivacious, 
and had cultivated the arts of magnetism, which availed him in 
gaining place near abler men, but lacking his tact and industry. 
Law he had never studied, nor could he have passed a prescribed 
civil service examination for a clerkship, but men he read and 
measured with such precision that he never blundered as an Indi- 
ana politician. He avoided a conflict in Congress with his superi- 
ors in debate ; was an apt prompter to the abashed new member, so 
that when the time arrived for a speaker's campaign the press was 
in line of service, and cohorts, all loyal, moved at the command of 
their captain. 

In the stormiest periods of our national history he dicided 
great questions in the House and in the Senate with promptness 
and clear perception, winning the favor of extremest partisan foes 
as a model parliamentarian. 

The secrets of his lapse into private life were two: a modest 
letter while vice-president that he was not a candidate for re-elec- 
tion, and, though so far reconsidered that his name was used, 
Henry Wilson gained the honor after a sharp contest and by a few 
votes. This was no damper to a generous spirit, nor did it lose 
him prestige or favor as a worthy and astute leader. 

The Credit Mobilier scandal, like a tempest in the forest that 
bears down the tallest trees, struck some of the first of our public 
servants as with the breath of a political sirocco, and among the 
number was Colfax, in proof that detraction like death "loves a 
shining mark". Oakes Ames, Avho parceled out the stock to 
friends at a cash value, was arraigned for seeking to corrupt by 
the sale of thousands of dollars worth of this property to eleven 
members of Congress. There was a morbid thirst for scandal, and 
a victim, as in the days of Pontius Pilate, was demanded and two 
were found worthy of expulsion. Ames, who had sacrificed a 
collossal fortune — millions to join the two oceans by iron rail, and 
had become poor, and James Brooks of New York, a veteran editor, 
congressman and orator for democracy, were expelled — Ames to 
die of a broken heart because of injustice, and Brooks later, never 
recovering from the hasty verdict which clouded a brilliant career. 

In the sequel there has been a revolution in public opinion in ' 
regard to Oakes Ames' motives, as evinced by the unanimous 
request of every senator and representative in the late General 



194 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

Assembly of Massachusetts, together with that of thousands of our 
most eminent citizens of all parties, that Congress should erase 
their resolution of censure. 

Colfax, who was alleged by the testimony of Ames to have 
profited by the stock held in the sum of one thousand dollars, 
made a denial, but being out of office, there was no formal verdict 
in the case. Colfax's denial, with explanations and strong corrob- 
orating facts in his favor, were held as conclusive evidence of his 
integrity, by friends. The act of holding stock was no longer 
deemed a wrong, for accepting bribes was not charged, but it was a 
denial which involved a contradiction of Ames' book and verbal 
testimony. This is a brief historic record, which outlines facts 
leading to the conviction that a confiding trust and not a timid dis- 
trust would have saved a great character from political expatria- 
tion from the councils of statesmen. There is left but a charitable 
construction to be put on the deeds of both, involved in this con- 
troversy — a mistake by each in the multiplicity of vexatious cases, 
rather than an untruth, which, unconfessed, no matter of charity 
can cover. 

This Colfax said and could afford to say : «' I seek no political 
recognition, and ask neither party nor friends to bear this load of 
scandal. It is my aim to cultivate a cheerful temper, and prove 
that I have not been unworthy of the honors received at the hands 
of my countrymen." So I remember his words, which were in 
accord with a life, charitable to the unfortunate and to enemies, 
radiant in words and deeds, to outlive one of the incidents to noto- 
riety and fame. The severest wintry blasts did not prevent the 
gathering from far and near of multitudes on the sad funeral occa- 
sion at South Bend, over which city sorrow brooded. 

The life of Schuyler Colfax was a personal protest against 
grossness, profanity, intemperance and infidelity ; a shining exam- 
ple of filial devotion, of industry, political sagacity, generous 
impulse and consummate generalship. 

GRATZ BROWN. 

He was caricatured as a tag on the coat-tail of the great editor, 
Greeley. And what are the facts ? Gratz Brown was of a fine 
family. He was a student, a graduate with high honors. Then 
he electrified the nation as a member of the Legislature of Mis- 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 195 

soiiri, when about thirty years of age, with eloquent and earliest 
philippics against slavery. The great Thomas H. Benton said to 
me in 1853, in St. Louis, that Brown was a doomed man, either to 
die by ruffianism or become a conspicuous actor. Southern people 
remember his career as a writer for freedom. At the breaking out 
of the war he was commissioned an officer; then he became a 
trusted friend of Lincoln, arm in arm with General Frank P. Blair, 
a cousin; then governor, later United States senator, it is true 
depressed with poor health but self-poised, a statesman of thought 
and courage. 

On one occasion Senator Grimes said : " Gratz Brown has the 
floor for a speech, and he is never common, but worth hearing; 
original as a student of affairs." Then he was a candidate on the 
Liberal ticket for vice-president with Greeley in 1872, a place he 
did not seek, but did aspire to the first place, supported by warm 
personal friendships. How absurd that he went out of sight by 
that hireling, rude, professional Nast ! I saw him in the cam- 
paign, and know he was calm, cheerful, yet not confident of suc- 
cess after tokens of treachery by the southern wing of the party. 
Pictures, or jealousy, or defeat, never disturbed one so gallant, 
who wore all his many honors with Christian modesty and 
forgiveness for enemies; a great favorite where best known, in the 
circle of the literary ; besides, a real hero on his own soil in 
denunciation of a slave system where he was cradled. A wonder- 
ful intellect sank in a frail tabernacle, after a grapple with great 
questions and high official stations held without a hint of dishonor. 

A solution of his quiet retirement behind the political curtain 
is found not in caricature or defeat, but rather from excessive 
stimulation for a time ; the bane of such a genius often ; a habit 
he overcame to become a champion of sobriety and the cheerful 
citizen, attracted by an endeared family, rather than the allure- 
ments of politics, until he was suddenly called hence. In the roll- 
call of pioneers and champions of freedom, there may be no peer 
to the magisterial Benton of Missouri save Gratz Brown, who car- 
ried the lance of a knight, never consulting political weather, nor 
relying on adepts in caucus " round-ups ". Numbers did not abash 
him, and it is cruel calumny that he was angered by derision, or a 
stolid misanthrope. The verdict of the gods would be (if as of 
old in judgment) — a man who abjured sordid maxims in the road 
to fame, evinced the brain of a statesman, the courage of a soldier, 



196 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

and sounded the bugle call of emancipation on slave soil amidst 
howling mobs, the jeers of an apostate clergy and bold threats of 
assassins. 

DAVID DAVIS. 

Many in Iowa were in sorrow when Illinois laid away in sepul- 
ture at Bloomington an eminent jurist, statesman and devoted 
friend. Those who knew him best, the Weldons, Funks, Fells, 
and pioneers of forty years ago, were the saddest mourners. Eob- 
ert Lincoln was chief pall-bearer, the son of the martyr, in a sad, 
reciprocal service, recalling anew the favor which made the jurist 
a justice of our great court, and the honored executor of the great 
emancipation. 

I came to know Mr. Davis in business, as an Iowa land owner 
twenty-live years ago, and to learn that his estate, near the town 
of Newton, came, like many other tracts, as a retainer, but an inci- 
dent in his profession, which nursed a love for the soil, and made 
him the favorite of agriculturists and the largest possessor of real- 
ity in the region, if not affluent above all our pioneer land owners 
— a farmer rather than a speculator. 

There was nothing strange in his political ambition, nor was 
there one repellant feature in methods or leadership. He desired 
the nomination for the presidency in 1872, which was given to Mr. 
Greeley. He was an ornament to the bench, and not less a favor- 
ite with the patriotic masses than with those of the class of the 
late J. M. Walker, of the C, B. & Q. Eailway, whose ardor was so 
great that on the way to Cincinnati he avowed to me it would be a 
pleasure to make the journey on foot to the Queen City if neces- 
sary to secure the nomination of a liberal sure to sweep the coun- 
try. Mr. Greeley, I know, preferred Davis' nomination to his own, 
but the candidacy of Senator Trumbull was active and fatal to Mr. 
Davis. I mentioned his probable presidential nomination later, to 
which he replied : " It is idle to use my name. The labor party 
nomination has given me no absolute strength. Once I had 
expectations, perhaps desire, as a liberal, and that was my time if 
ever, but despite devoted friends it was not to be." The head- 
lands of later political history are well known. Democrats and 
independents made him senator. The repute for judicial integrity 
made him a member of the presidential commission, but a high 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 197 

sense of honor forbade a service which partisans still hold cost Til- 
den the presidency, and then followed a culminated honor in the 
selection of acting vice-president by the republican senators with 
whom he was often in opposition. 

Mr. Conkling had made a thrust at a senatorial '* fence rider 
with doubtful proclivities ", which called forth a reply, at once a 
model in diction and with candor and emotion to make the impress 
of a patriot and fix his station among statesman, even beyond tem- 
porary obscuration. It was at the old National Hotel at Washing- 
ton that he won by simplicity and cordiality the masses. There 
he occupied the rooms vacated in death by his political idol, Henry 
Clay, whom he resembled in nothing save in political aspiration 
and failure to reach the goal. Party exactions were too great for 
the gallant leader, and independents were but blindly-led cohorts 
fatal to Davis, who trusted in conservative methods and timid 
counsels. 

The deceased in presence was colossal ; twice the weight of an 
average senator, causing him to be sensitive to caricature and fre- 
quent mention of abnormal size. In the broad face and cheery 
countenance, coupled with a hearty welcome, there was an attrac- 
tion which held friends as by hooks of steel. In his person, his- 
tory and achievements, there is a refutation of common opinions 
which limit such endorsements to mediocrity. Tried by the asso- 
ciates of eminence and many stern conflicts, he must be placed 
higher in the world's esteem by the lapse of time. 

JOHN A. LOGAN. 

Americans should be drawn toward this statesman-soldier, 
especially in view of his political environment in the Egypt of the 
North, where he was surrounded by the peculiar allurements of a 
dominant power in his early manhood, but from which he broke 
away to recast of opinions. He became as bold for the right in 
later years as he was subservient in youth to the baser intolerant 
party edicts. 

"Dirty Logan" was the earned title of the champion of Illinois 
black-laws. His eye was not opened to the degrading exactions of 
the slave-power, until Douglass had in the name of friends been 
betrayed, and j&re-eaters in speech blossomed into open traitors to 
the flag. 



198 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

He was a soldier — the victim of a lurking suspicion by radi- 
cals, while touched by the poisonous breath of old comrades, jeer- 
ing him ; but he was not reached by flattery nor allured by bribes. 
Using his own language ten years after the war — "I was left to 
fight my way to confidence, and the post of danger was welcome — 
while silent and calm under provoking injustice in the field." 

Time became his vindicator as a soldier, and impartial history 
will ever associate his name with the first honored civilian-general 
of the war. A violent temper, coupled with ambition, could but 
alienate some, and retard his career. Cautious generals sneered at 
his rank, and the press was cruel in criticism, and made much of 
the rhetoric of one not fortunate in enjoying the early culture of 
the schools. Still, he was apt in story, bold in figures, merciless in 
invective. I bought his book on the Kebellion, which I praised as 
liberal and trustworthy though I knew that I had found no flattery. 

In his person he could have been taken for a Spanish prince, 
and no mean compliment. He had a dark, keen eye, firm-knit 
frame and proud tread. Did he, in the Mexican war, seek the 
bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth ? He was fair to his 
foes. Too generous was he not to credit his foe in battle with a 
devotion that showed the stuff for real heroes. 

We met socially at the Yellowstone Park, and I loved the man 
more the nearer an approach. Indulging in severe judgments of 
men and compeers, his loves were strong. Without pretence, or 
defense of inconstancy as a church member, he carried a confid- 
ing trust in man's immortal Captain and Guide. But "he was 
ambitious, and a political slate-maker ! " Grant all, and his ambi- 
tion was legitimate and open, and it was the presence of rivals less 
open that made his acts, and the choice of confiding friends, a 
necessity. There was neither the taint of duplicity, nor of venal- 
ity, though he was often depressed in want of the sinews of a 
political campaign. 

It might have been vanity, yet there was no concealment that 
he might, heading the presidential ticket in 1884, have been 
elected, and an impression prevailed that the soldiers, and Illinois 
with emphasis, would make him the leader in 1888 ; but suddenly 
he was called to join the majority beyond the realm of politics. 
He leaves the " Great Conspiracy ", a volume of facts and bold phi- 
losophy, as a rich legacy to his countrymen, yet not of equal value 
to his personal career as a soldier and friend. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 199 

HENRY S. FOOTE AND JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

Long ago, from my gallery seat, I made a study of the Missis- 
sippi senators, Henry S. Foote and Jefferson Davis. What they 
had in common beyond professed hate of free soilers it was not 
easy to discern. Foote was a dark-faced, baldheaded man, reputed 
in the streets to have blood that suspiciously tinged his skin under 
the eye where you locate the Crow-foot. Whether the Indian or 
the African color, they will say, '" Let him soar, for he is a gor- 
geous southern orator." He was peripatetic and merry as a page 
boy. With all his bluster and dramatic beatings over the place 
where a heart is supposed to be located, the fire-eaters really held 
him in contempt as a compromiser — staunching wounds on behalf 
of " Union saviors ". 

Mr. Davis was his antipode in every aspect, certainly an 
unmixed Caucasian. He eloped with General Taylor's daughter, 
and I dare say from his hauteur he has never begged pardon for 
the offense. Wherein he was very lovable I did not discover. 
Cheek-bones high, nose very sharp, cheeks gaunt, lips compressed 
as if in anger, undergirt with a chin which meant a welcome to a 
fight under any conceivable provocation. The air of a West Point 
ofi&cer he carries, and affects the importance of one who won a 
title in the Mexican war, but is too thin in person to look well and 
far too stilted for plumes won in a doubtful war. 

He detests compromise, and I liken him to the shallow pugil- 
ist with a chip on the shoulder. How he listens when a radical 
like Hale or Chase speaks, having, as I read him, a morbid desire 
for some lapsus linguce on which he can hinge a speech fit for the 
cotton growers, or allow an indulgence in threats and in speech on 
the worth of the Union, provided it has a Calhoun slavery corner- 
stone. As a speaker he had neither the fluency or the real sublim- 
ity of Foote. Did he ever smile ? There is no record that Cataline 
did. He had not wit like Hale, nor the poise of Seward, yet, I 
thought, he will do to watch, even though a gentleman senator of 
good habits. 

GENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT. 

This venerable historic soldier was little seen in public up to 
the firing on Sumpter, save on grand occasions. Who would not be 
vain ! The hero of Lundy Lane, and of the Mexican war, bring- 



200 BEMINISCENCLS OF FORTY YEARS. 

ing great gains in treasure. He was tall, rotund, well-moulded 
without the device of padding ; none better than the old general 
could feel that, like Napoleon in his glory, " To be a god you must 
not be too common among mortals." 

Had he said, " Let the erring sisters go in peace ? " It was 
rather an opinion than high philosophy. He oft ate and drank 
with the fire-eaters. Fratricidal war, and << garments rolled in 
blood ", had less attraction for him than for younger bloods never 
in the smoke of battle. 

In 1861 he was not doubted in loyalty, but regarded unequal 
by age for the crisis. Governor Grimes suggested to us, a group 
of lowans in the city, that we call on the chief and take home the 
best news to our anxious people ; for the war was on, and it was a 
sad prospect of more than a sixty days' conflict. 

It was a sight-seeing, curious company, headed by the governor, 
that, after halts, skirmishing and sulphurous execration of red tape 
lines, were ushered into the old general's presence — truly august. 
To all save reminiscences he was dumb, and on an effort to find 
cheer in a military horoscope, he shut his eyes in blind noncha- 
lance and mystery. He did say that many good soldiers were 
buried, victims of the cholera in Rock Island in 1833, in the Black 
Hawk war, where he was stationed, before Iowa was. So husky 
was his voice and dull the eye, that one of our company sought to 
interject a western opinion, and our general not only nodded 
assent, but fell into a sleep at mid-day. So we retired guying our 
spokesman on the speech and its soothing effects. This report to 
Senator Grimes only confirmed an opinion that, with an old, imbe- 
cile head, there was more than protracted war — disunion. Before 
night Mr. Lincoln, by the senator's visit, was advised of this spir- 
ited reception given to the senator's constituents. 

Mr. Lincoln said to me, later, '' You stirred up Grimes to swear 
in madness over the incapacity of our general. Now, candidly, did 
he color it ? " 

I answered, <' He did sleep, and we retreated, not on a bugle 
call, but before he snored out in prologue." 

It was not long before there was a hail to the new McClel- 
lan, chief of the army, but late in the refrain, "who in triumph 
advances ". 

This is no reflection on an old soldier of seventy-four years, 
but a fact of the times; a key to the boldness of traitors and 



BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 201 

another evidence that our president had not only to create an 
army, but a delicate task in dealing with senility, sporting the 
plumes of youthful victories long after the stamp of raven feet, 
under once brilliant eyes, should have been a signal for a less vain 
hero to retire without an official invitation by the kind-hearted 
Lincoln. 

HENRY CLAY. 

These sketches of eminent leaders may be closed with more 
distant, but not less vivid, recollections of the great Kentuckian. 
It is many years ago that I exchanged salutations with Henry 
Clay at Washington, in the barber's shop of the National Hotel. 
Taking the chair at call of " next ", a tall, venerable gentleman 
opened the door, whom I recognized as Mr. Clay, and to him I 
said, "It will be a pleasure to give you my turn." After some 
hesitation, and thanks for the courtesy, he said when seated, 
"May I know the name of the gentleman to whose politeness I am 
indebted, while I have visitors above waiting ? " This prepared 
the way for his warm expressions of devotion to my kindred by 
name in Xew York, and gave me a chance to say that as a Ver- 
monter, when the stages were full, I was compelled to walk near 
twenty miles to hear him speak once at Burlington. To this he 
replied, " I was called the lion of the occasion, but the roaring was 
very poor pay for so long a walk ; but come up to my room at 
any time after dinner and we can talk at leisure." Of course I 
accepted the invitation, for it was at the time of heated discussion 
on the compromise measures, and it required a senatorial pass to 
gain admission to the small Senate chamber, now occupied by the 
Supreme Court. 

I heard Mr. Clay make his last public speech, but after a pecul- 
iar outside colloquy. Webster had made his 7th of March speech, 
on the questions of compromise. Extreme fire-eaters like Jeff 
Davis, were with free-soilers, like Seward, Hale and Chase, on 
one side, while Clay and moderate democrats like Douglass and 
Dodge and Jones, from Iowa, were on the other. In the midst of 
a great rush for seats my senatorial card was of no avail, and only 
the "privileged " could find admission. 

The door-keeper, C. H. Brainard, I knew well, and in the pres- 
ence of an anxious, waiting crowd I touched the door to go in. 
"No, not unless you are a privileged member. Are you? There 



202 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

are new orders; the Senate chamber has been like a rushing mob. 
Are you privileged ? " and, bowing with hesitation, he asked : 
"A judge?" <'No." <' Ex-member ? " ''No." "Governor?" 
''No." "Minister?" "Yes." "Pardon my in quisitiveness, from 
what court, sir, if you please?" To carry out my part of the 
comedy I solemnly pointed up. Thereupon Brainard, the wit, said, 
" I regret to inform you, my friend, that will not avail and bring 
you under the rule, for this government has had no intercourse 
with that foreign power for many years." An original retort which 
scattered the merry throng, and, after a brief delay I came back to 
find admission. 

It was near the close of the great debate of the century. Jeff 
Davis was bitter. Senator Benton clutched the resolutions, hold- 
ing them up, shouting, "So would I strangle the propositions 
worthy only of derision." Mr. Clay, pale and emaciated, passed 
up to the president's desk either for a pinch of snuff or to talk 
with the clerk on an amendment, and it was then in order that he 
said "Mr. President" with a bland expression, senatorial dignity, 
and unusual cadence that hushed the chamber into the stillness of 
sepulchre. One hand rested on the marble desk, his cloak was 
hung loosely, while a trembling hand was raised in solemn ges- 
tures, or oftener in wiping emotional tears which could not be hid 
while making a last appeal to the Senate and his country. That 
occasion revealed the secret of his power ; a suave manner, melodi- 
ous voice, sublime expression and patriotic appeal, with the pre- 
monition of a dying speech — the most touching appeal to which I 
ever listened. 

I think there is but one person on Iowa soil besides myself 
who heard that farewell of the great Commoner, and that is Hon. 
George W. Jones, now of Dubuque, one of Iowa's then United 
States senators. There is no senator now serving who was in that 
body in 1851 and 1852. 

Has time, civil commotion, bloody war, the edict of emancipa- 
tion and the fierce debates of reconstruction brought into that 
chamber — draped in mourning on the 29th of June, 1852, for the 
gallant leader — a peer ? Mr. Blaine names but two parliamentary 
leaders in his history, after Clay. Douglass excelled in mere 
animal force and demonstration, which moved the lower stratum of 
society to admiration for audacity linked to ambition which gave 
promise of power in a popular and gallant forensic challenge in 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 203 

liigli forum. Thaddeus Stevens was a keener wit, more learned, 
subtle, clearer in ethical perception and bolder in enunciation, but 
wanting those native gifts in voice, endowment of person and 
frank address so conspicuous in Clay, for whom by popular verdict 
there have gone up oftenest the rude, loud huzzah at the hustings, 
and in whose honor scholars and patriots for a generation at the 
festive boards, with the spontaneity of lovers, quaffed their wine 
to the toast — " Here is to Harry Clay ! " 

What of the striking personage whom an impressible young 
man saw from the Senate gallery! Seated, there was nothing in 
the wan cheek and sunken eye that suggested greatness ; only pity 
tliat a gallant and great patriot had not reached the goal of his 
ambition. He rises, and there is nature's nobleman ; tall, unbent 
by the toil of seventy-five years, erect, firm and graceful in move- 
ment on that floor where he held a kingly sceptre. The page boys 
have a benign recognition, old rivals court a smile as a benediction, 
and the president announces the senator from Kentucky. 

How fine the modulations in clearest tones and of astonishing 
compass and power. You cannot escape the spell of his magnet- 
ism, nor be unmoved by that sublimity which is the climax of 
oratorical expression. There is no longer wonder that he is the 
senatorial idol, the gentleman with the " five-fold blazon ", the last 
and greatest of the "historic triumvirate". So I remember the 
man ; and in review of all his triumph, he is to be ever remembered 
as ''the father of the American system of Protection". 

Daniel Webster was Clay's antithesis — -dark in complexion, 
phlegmatic temperament, rotund in form, slow and studied in 
speech-. Reading Clay's speeches, his reputation was a mystery; 
hearing Webster in ordinary debate you would wonder at his fame, 
there being a dry flow of words with measured periods, inciting 
the wish that he would break the monotony and give you evidence 
of that power which gave him the rank of the great orator and 
matchless rhetorician. He was the orator for great occasions 
where his sympathies were enlisted and there was the challenge of 
a foe worthy of his powers. His business and financial speeches 
are seldom quoted. His set orations are chaste and classic, and 
unequalled. That he was under the cloud of the 7th of March 
speech may account for what was peculiar in his later life, when 
he was less free in manner asd wanting that jocundity made 
attractive in the parlor and by the sea-side. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Our Notable Guests — Wendell Phillips — John Brown — Horace 
Greeley — Henry Ward Beecher. 

WENDELL PHILLIPS. 

This great character calls up thirty or more of his letters on 
social, business, reformatory and political matters, addressed to 
myself and family. My eye rests on his portrait, the best in art- 
istic skill of all the pictures of the comely, princely, classic face of 
the renowned American. It is said that Wilberforce was ''the 
most learned and respected person in all England". Has not the 
grave just closed over the peer of that great philanthropist in long, 
heroic and devoted service ; one as eminent and forceful in endow- 
ment, meeting the demands of a grand epoch ? Wendell Phillips 
is not a name to be forgotten, nor will it ever be mentioned by 
those who knew him personally without the deepest emotion. I 
shall only trace him briefly in the by -walks on his journey, rather 
than follow his public eulogists. It is near forty years since he 
charmed me with his eloquence. A debut in Iowa in 1856, 
described, may have the merit of interest in a state where he was 
a great favorite. He was to speak, on his first visit, by special 
contract at Iowa City — the state capitol — on the Lost Arts. 

Governor Grimes, state officers, members of the legislature, and 
the leading minds of the city were present. These were the stormy 
days of 1856, and anticipating a desire to hear him on political 
topics, I suggested to Mr. Phillips a change of the lecture, to 
which he replied, '' I think our timid friend the presiding officer 
would faint at the suggestion." The "Lost Arts" Avas in the 
orator's best vein, but previously a note had been handed to the 
governor and others suggesting a call for the agitator. On an 
agreement to second the call, a req^iest was made at the close for a 
supplement without ''bit or bridle". The chairman said; "The 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 205 

lecture is over; we have no further responsibility." (A mob had 
been hinted.) On a shouting vote for a new speech, the excite- 
ment began. Mr. Phillips said he would not take time to deny that 
he was, as he said, the incendiary fanatic, lighting up his way with 
burning parchments and constitutions. He first tortured half-way- 
house rej)ublicans with such keen wit and severity — those "who 
tempted their gods that fell to be foot balls" — that democrats 
shouted ; then he bid them repress their glee, for, with the logic of 
a political outlaw, he would have in reserve medicine for the party 
rich in professions of Jefferson and profuse in the apostasy of the 
early Julian. Their time came and the other side cheered with 
great vociferation at these words : "Democracy which will assas- 
sinate Douglass and every northern man who cultivates his back- 
bone. The last doughface is being moulded to have equal place in 
politics with the mummy of Egypt. Garrison has no halter about 
his neck; Sumner is in the Senate; your load is the heavy corpse 
of slavery." 

His figures of speech were fresh, pathetic and eloquent, and he 
was urged on after repeated attempts at pausing, by cries of " Go 
on," "Go on," which carried the dramatic scene until after mid- 
night. The local press was full of it. Governor Grimes, writing to 
his wife, called it a most exciting and enjoyable treat by the silver- 
tongued orator. Mr. Hepburn, M. C. from Iowa, said a few days 
since, that this was the speech above all others he had ever heard 
he best remembered, though delivered thirty -five years ago. 

Years later, on my recalling that the Lyceum president, with 
protest and avowal that "he would not be responsible for a possi- 
ble mob ", Mr. Phillips said, " You capped the climax in ridicule by 
saying that 'your responsibility is not of the least consequence'." 
I wonder if such a picture of a human spaniel has recovered from 
a fright in fear of billets of wood and possibly accompanying stale 
eggs, Now and then such a specimen of fraud glides into notice, 
thinking that he controls sentiment, when he is only a poor show 
of a weather-cock gilded above where live roosters learn to crow. 
At best, he was but an engineer building bridges for retreat. Well, 
it's a part of the compensation in my journeys among strangers 
that such fellows produce healthful merriment. 

Mr. Phillips' generosity, the spontaneity of a great heart, was 
well known. For labor, impartial sufferage, and many organiza- 
tions, his words were free. On the request for a lecture his 



206 REMINIS-CENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

answer often was, "If I choose my subject, probably 'Slavery', 
only expenses ; if you choose my subject, one hundred dollars and 
expenses." I give a fact in further illustration. At an early day 
I made investments on his account. Delinquents in principal or 
interest he would not allow to be sued, but would rather apologize 
for reminding as to the debt. There was the case of a soldier of 
whom he wrote, " Would it not be better to encourage him by 
throwing off a iew hundred dollars ? I cannot afford to be push- 
ing, and had rather lose than bring pain to worthy people." There 
was a Kansas debtor. "If he is true to the free state men, and 
has a spark of the courage of Jim Lane and John Brown, let him 
go ! Kansas has good soil but no certain value, until the issue of 
blood and war is over." It was his conviction that time with 
lenity brought greater gains than litigation. And in the issue of 
his western affairs his philosophy was a true one. 

The theological opinions of our friend were far from loose, with 
a creed not atheistic, as commonly held. He was orthodox. "I 
know of no theological divergence from my brother-in-law, Dr. 
Blagden, minister of the Old South. It is possible that there are 
deductions and doxies of which I am ignorant, but this is not a 
painful reflection when on the march and in assault." As late as 
1880 I received from him an account of a heated discussion in a 
circle of liberal authors and theologians, when he, like the histo- 
rian Bancroft, gave an approval of Jonathan Edwards, the theolo- 
gian, in these words : " He was a great force in New England and 
the ' gods ' of the Connecticut valley grew up under such preaching 
as his. In high character, devotion to public interests and great 
self-sacrifice, they were as good as anything we have to-day." 

It is many years since, on my proposal to make a loan of his 
money on hand to an orthodox church, that a good lady doubted if 
so much of an " infidel would like it ". Long after the use of his 
money there was a fine stone church being completed in the city of 
Grinnell. Casually there came to view a fact as to his liberality. 
The mention that this is the ground on which he once held a mort- 
gage, recalled that his clerk said he was not certain of its dis- 
charge. On inquiry, the trustees had for years forgotten both 
interest and principal. "Bring me the facts, and a blank," said 
Mr. Phillips, " and I will sign a release of all at once." 

To tlie surprise of both parties, the indebtedness amounted to 
seven hundred and fifty dollars. This Mr. Phillips said it gave 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 207 

him great pleasure to donate in compliment to the enterprise of 
the church and its sturdy faith. At the time of the tornado, in 
1882, the first notice by telegram of a few hundred dollars by 
''draft on the way" was from our friend, soon followed by a letter 
requesting me to come on, and, should he be short of money, he 
would find a Phillips who wasn't. Thus one thousand dollars 
came by a simple suggestion to aid in rebuilding the college halls 
destroyed. 

Civil Service as a political plank, I heard him often deride, and 
long before its late bogus exemplar was in office. These are his 
exact words in a letter before me, written just before his death : 
"As to this cry about Civil Service, I am against creating what 
they have in England — a set of life-offices eaten up with esprit die 
corps and imbued with aristocratic ideas. The worst element I 
ever saw in this country was the close corporation of fellows who 
had been office-holders in Washington for thirty or forty years, 
and were, in 1861, the worst 'secesh' — all dead against Lincoln. 
My civil sevice is going a stride ahead toward more democratic 
institutions." This was enforced with a question, "Why should 
not the patrons of post offices and custom houses elect their ser- 
vants under certain limitations ? This will be effectual reform." 
In this connection, I mention that he was emphatically opposed to 
the free trade policy with which as a student he was enamoured 
theoretically, but found that in practical business concerns an 
American policy of protection proved to be the highest states- 
manship, intimately related to our national growth and financial 
preeminence. 

John Brown of Ossawattomie came up in association with our 
Liberty Eoom (once the parlor), where the old hero stacked his 
arms and his company of fugitives slept. "Don't mar it or part 
with it, for every year will lend interest to the room and your 
guest, who with courageous blood dared to strike the great blow of 
the century." 

On my referring to the long, dreary burial trip of his friend, 
among the mountains, he said, " No, no ! I was not at the heels of 
a mailed warrior, or a dead prince. It was not my purpose to 
keep from the funeral. Don't think me peculiar in my admiration, 
for I could surprise the world by telling what I know of the deep 
convictions of able, but very cautious surface people. There are 
now many strains of blood that are red and with full bead, as in 



208 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

other days." Soon in onr history it was developed, only more 
than he saw in vision. When a biographer comes to picture to 
the life the man of soul, Brown, who lighted and alarmed with 
rockets in our drear dark night, Phillips will be in the foreground 
at the burial of the victim of the gallows, in the shadow of the 
forests, in the solitudes of the mountains. None but an inspired 
pen may touch the theme. This will be the epitaph of the hero, 
who was of Kevolutionary blood : 

I GAVE MY Sword 



Slave my Fathers Forgot. 

The Phi Betta Kappa oration at Harvard was bold, revolu- 
tionary in mention of dynamite and dagger as a way out of the 
slavery of the Czar. He said: "It is not to be modified. All I 
could not enforce. Demand a whole loaf, if you will get half of it. 
This is the issue of reform that only when striking high will you 
bring game worth bagging. They will stop often at a half-way 
house for rest. Place our people in the shoes of the banished mil- 
lions in Siberia, and fearful, for their children, they would say 
'Amen'. Nothing heats blood like the thought of victims in our 
own family. The virtue of a radical idea is in making the masses 
think. Yes, they complain that I did not give my Alma Mater 
credit. They of Harvard know all its good, and it was my painful 
duty to remind of what it was all along their pleasure to forget." 

At our last meeting in Boston he said, " Come up, and call with 
me on our Governor Butler; I have an errand and he will be glad 
to see you." While on the way across the old common, these 
words fell, " I don't forget a general who took our first regiment to 
the field in face of Baltimore assassins, when noisy and sleepy 
patriots, with hands in their pockets, only looked wise. If Butler 
is not your leader in full uniform, he will be mentioned long after 
mere respectable idle patriots are forgotten. Your party should 
have cultivated him more, and cursed him less, for it is too late to 
call him a mere cipher, with a cultured good stock of brains and 
immense vitality for emergencies." 



REMINISCENCES OF FOBTY YEARS. 209 

On the State House steps and in the hall, varied humanity 
swarmed about Phillips like insects over honey. As near as I 
could learn they wanted a place and " were broke ", if the passing 
out of bills from their friend's pockets was a fair indication of the 
pleas in poverty. In regard to all he said, relieved of the crowd, 
"I am almost doomed to hermitage, for there is .a delusion as to 
my influence and pecuniary ability." I could then guess why he 
who was an heir to a fortune, a great income and with frugal 
habits, had little wealth, as discovered at his death. 

For his home, which I often visited, I have but a word. Nei- 
ther of his residences, that on E§sex street which he left sorrow- 
fully, at the demand of the city for improvements, or that on Com- 
mon street, were worth more than ten thousand dollars each. 
Their interior finish was even plainer than the exterior. I saw no 
canine of any degree seeking his caresses ; nor did canary or mock- 
ing-bird break the silence in window, hall or library. His interest 
was devoted to the higher, not the lower brute order of creation. 
His library was truly a work-shop. Newspapers were strewn, 
clipped and marked, with no semblance of order, save to him who 
knew all his tools as readily as the tropes and quotations leaping 
to his tongue in artistic form and apt array in debate. There were 
rare gifts in pictures, and embossed souvenir volumes from many 
lands. Only a poor library, by count, yet rich and rare in quality 
for reference and in our standard literature. 

Whittier, his quiet Quaker poet and delight, was most conspic- 
uous on the Avail, both in robust youth and later in pensive mel- 
lowed age. Sumner's statue, by Miss Whitney, awakened my 
interest and was admired by the OAvner. The bust of Garrison and 
miniature pictures of Theodore Parker, and of John BroAvn in 
marble, brought up the old guard, and one to Avhose fortunes as a 
martyr Phillips linked his name in the mingled pathos of tears 
and enchantments of eulogy. 

On the occasion of my last call at his house, these were the 
last words heard from his great, warm heart: "Though I am an 
old man you won't forget me, will you? Good-by." How would 
it be possible for those who knew him ever to forget him ? 



To live in hearts we leave behind 
Is not to die. 



210 bi:miniscences of forty years. 

JOHN BROWN OF OSSAWATTOMIE. 

A ring at my door, March, 1859. " Good evening, sir. I am a 
stranger here — pardon me — is this Mr. Grinnell ? " " That is my 
name." "I have heard of you and do not feel like a stranger, for 
you married a daughter, I am told, of my old friend. Deacon 
Chauncey Chapin, of Springfield, Mass., where I once resided." 

"Will you come and see the daughter?" "Yes, I am chilly 
riding, and wish to open my errand privately." 

Captain Brown was not slow in making his way by a mention 
of his dear old friend, Eev. Dr. Samuel Osgood; and he said that 
his Sunday timepiece was "the passing of your father's carriage on 
the way to church, and I would tell my group of children to hurry 
or we should be late to church." He accepted an invitation to tea; 
and his attentions to the little girl, our prattling Mary, soon 
brought her playfully to his knees. 

" Let me see you in the hall a moment ; I am not here for a 
social visit — I am the 'awful Brown' of whom you have heard — 
Captain John Brown of Kansas." " Yes, and I was reading just 
now in the New York Tribune that you were leading a company of 
fugitives through Iowa to Canada ; that there was a large reward 
offered for your capture, and the United States marshals were sure 
to capture the party." "Please let me see the paper," and on 
reading, he said, " My company is just back here in the grove, and 
I am only a scout. Don't put yourself and family in jeopardy — I 
came for advice. I was in the ' wool business ', and am still, they 
say derisively, and I hear you are openly. We are sixteen per- 
sons, with horses, and man and beast must be fed, and stop with 
friends if we can, and not spies. Then, it is Saturday and we 
want rest. I make it a rule not to travel on Sunday if it can be 
avoided, and to save expense we can cook our own food ; and we 
need a rendezvous to stack our arms. What do you advise ? " I 
opened the door into the parlor, since called the " Liberty Room ", 
to say, " This is at your service, and you can occupy the stalls at 
the barn not taken. Our hotel will be as safe as any place, for a 
part of your company, and there is no occasion to wait \\\\i\\ night, 
for you have too much of an outfit for concealment." My guest 
I foUoAved to the door, the sun shining full in his face, his head 
uncovered with a light and facial expression an artist might covet 
as a subject. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 211 

He stood very erect for a mau nearing sixty years, and wore a 
full, long beard, almost white, with hair parted and standing up, 
suggesting Andrew Jackson as pictured. The chin was broad, lips 
compressed, the eye was a keen, light gray, deep set and mild, only 
flashing in moments of excited action, or when crossed in debate. 
Charles Sumner's opinion is mine, that, after seeing his bust, there 
is nothing the sun shines upon so like Michael Angelo's Moses, 
There were no spurs on his boots, and he was only clad in a plain, 
well-worn suit, with nothing to suggest border warfare save a wide- 
rimmed hat and half-concealed pistol. 

He afterward explained his pistol being in sight, for there was 
a law against carrying it concealed : " But mine," he said, " is not 
fully concealed, and there shall be no pretense for arrest on my 
peaceful journey." 

He went to Mrs. Reid's hotel and engaged stalls for the horses, 
and supper for the women; then went back to meet his company. 
The news had spread as to Brown's arrival, and the town was out 
in good numbers to see the outfit. Couriers, making as good a dis- 
play as possible, we're glistening with spurs, and there was a clink 
of swords and in sight Sharp's six-shooters, which Mr. Beecher's 
church had purchased. There were canvas-covered wagons fol- 
lowed by horsemen, altogether a novel affair before the civil war 
era. Sentinels were placed by strict military precaution, and my 
parlor in the corner was a deposit for small arms, ammunition, 
swords and rifles, some having been brought from concealment 
under the canvas. 

Soon there were calls from curious neighbors, the most of them 
to cheer, and to propose an evening reception for the guests in the 
large audience room used for a church. One, more conservative, 
said, "The town will be burned — it had been threatened, and 
every man should be at home to defend his property. Spies were 
about and the United States marshal could easily make an arrest." 
This nervous, good man I did not bring into Captain Brown's com- 
pany, but told him of dangers. It was then that he disclosed his 
defense. "We can shoot sixty times a minute, and every one, 
even of the women, is a practiced dead-shot. My men have seen 
service on the border, and one or two have a military education. 
Never fear ! I have found that cowards and rufiians are one fam- 
ily. Then I have many times been a fair mai'k for their lead 
while defending freedom, but they only touched my hair. But 



212 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

what shall I talk about to-night ? " " Tell your story of Kansas, 
and, if you feel safe, strengthen the back-bone of our weak peo- 
ple — good men, but cautious." 

It was a large meeting of several hundred persons, many from 
the groves, brought, not by sympathy, but by curiosity. Captain 
Brown was calm in manner, but full of emotion as he pictured the 
assassins from Missouri, and the death of a son, shot by outlaws in 
open day, and another tortured to madness — a Avorse fate than 
death — driven and chained like a dog, charged with no offense. 

For his part in the Kansas struggle he made a formal defense, 
and said that in the taking of life there was only self-defense. 
"The 'drop' was in gaining the first shot, and if you are right and 
your life is worth more than that of a man with murderous intent, 
save your own. Kansas is the home of bandits — I am, with 
Union men, alive to tell the story, because Ave got into their camp, 
having learned that, on a certain night while asleep, we were to be 
shot. My soldiers got the drop — only strategy — and the violence 
only proved that — this is good Bible — 'They that' take the sword 
shall perish by the sword.' ''I went to Kansas for peaceful set- 
tlement and to save a great state from slavery. ;Those that went 
there to forge fetters became murderers and deserved to die. I am 
not a man of blood, but when God sends me on an errand I don't 
wait for my enemies to choose the battle-ground, and if I ordered 
men shot it was because they had planned murder. There is no 
law on the border. But there will be — the hirelings, backed by 
Buchanan, cannot face lead." 

" Tell us about your company ! " one called out. 

"They call me a 'Nigger Thief. Am I? I delivered the 
poor that cried, and there was none to help." 

"But, Captain, are not your black people from Missouri?" 

"Yes — and I tell you my company were to be sold; we saw 
them in jeopardy, not charged with crime, to be sent South as cot- 
ton hands, or to the cane fields. They called to me and I rescued 
them. I have never counseled violence, nor would' I stir to insur- 
rection which Avould involve the innocent and helpless. Twelve 
was the number rescued, and led out from Missouri, a kind and 
grateful but ignorant company. They were trained for defense 
and wovild have been obedient to command. 

" NoAV I am in the role of a strategist, to keep the slaveholders 
away from Kansas, busy with their home affairs. They are learn- 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 213 

ing that they have enough to do in Missouri without burning out 
and killing free state men in Kansas. What I have got along 
would have sold for ten thousand dollars, and that is double the 
reward I hear offered for my head. The underground railroad is 
doing a great business, and there is a great demand for means of 
transportation, but my people brought their own. We don't steal 
horses. They take those raised by their care, and sell them to get 
what is 'kept back by fraud'. Now on Monday there will be 
shown some of our surplus horses for sale." 

" What title can you give ? " called out one. 

"The best — the affidavit that they were taken by black men 
from land they had cleared and tilled, taken in part payment for 
labor which is kept back." 

A call again, "Was not that stealing?" "Stealing by a thing! 
What are they but things under the slave code ? Every man has 
a right to a reward for labor, and I have made them men, and they 
want to trade the fruits of their industry for clothes and food. I 
don't Avish to debate, but deny that 'there can be no good war, and 
no bad peace'. Old men, if you have got any good blood, you 
sprang from rebels that met the foes of God and your country as 
we do in Kansas. I am told spies are in this room, as they were, 
advocating peace, at Tabor. They are your peacemakers, but only 
assassins of the Kansas stripe. We are far on our journey, ready 
to die in an open field, but to go back never, white or black, in 
charge of a Buchanan marshal into worse than slavery." 

J. H. Kagi spoke, but not with the solemnity of Brown, saying, 
"The half of border warfare had never been told. Kansas was a 
fine country worth a struggle, and Col. Jim Lane and his crowd 
were ready to meet in the right time twice their number. Cap- 
tain Brown would be hunted as a wild beast, and the loss of his 
property, exposure to hardship, and the death of sons, would have 
driven any other man to madness. Canada is a good breathing 
place for men of color, and, from my leader who has struck terror 
on the border, you will hear again." This, no doubt, had reference 
to the Virginia constitution, a part of which was written in my 
house, and to his Virginia raid the next December. Thus we saw 
Brown in public, skilled in repartee and effective in narration, with 
a purpose. 

In prayer, there was a supplication for enemies, and the poor 
fighting our battles on the border. On my asking for details iu 



214 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

his experiences, he said, " I have an aversion to talking about it ; 
the deeds were so horrible and my brain almost reels over tlie pic- 
tures, but if there is a God — and there is — He will avenge." 

The old prophets were often quoted on that Sunday, and great 
truths worthy of the renowned sages fell from his lips, which I 
took down at the time, and from memory gave to the press. They 
are to be found in Brown's life by Redpath. 

Captain Brown was an expert in the wool-trade. In my sheep 
barn and wool loft he lingered, saying that it was by honest sort- 
ing that he helped the trade, and by his independence that he 
became a poor man. "Grease and filth will not make cloth. I 
can with my eyes closed, tell of the texture of a fleece, and by the 
touch if strong or weak, if grown on a poor or fat animal; and 
honest selling on merit was my aim. I made a standard, and 
shipped to England a fine clip just as the price went down. There 
is no discounting my Canada and English trade in fleecy locks now, 
though disaster is predicted. Somebody, like many an inventor, has 
to fail. It is a question whether a dead man is a failure when 
living ones climb over him easier to scale the wall. I am under 
the law of fate which I cannot read. I like a quiet home and 
children, but there is no rest for me. Springfield, madam," 
addressing Mrs. G., " is a beautiful city, and Doctor Osgood was a 
sample minister above his profession, and he would urge me to 
quiet as you do. Yes — wife, boys and all are full of fear, but 
they don't know my mission — it is direct from God Almighty, and 
I am discharging it." 

That gave me the first indication of a kind of insanity, and I 
appealed to him to "take rest or your losses and severe sacrifice of 
your boys will drive you to madness ". 

"No — the battle is raging, and I must fight, much as I like a 
home, and play with children." 

J. H. Kagi appeared with a large bundle and sat in my library 
writing, while a sentinel was near. As the door was ajar, I heard 
Brown say that "he would not have it — the article must be 
drafted over". There was a long reading and discussion, there- 
upon a remark, to me, "I can trust you, and as a friend, if you 
overheard anything, I pray you regard it a profound secret." A 
part of the draft of the Virginia constitution I have no doubt was 
made then, yet was ignorant of his emancipation plot, which cost 
his life. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 215 

The Sunday evening meeting had been noticed in the morning, 
and it was more solemn than exciting. Captain Brown spoke 
without any spirit of revenge, and like a statesman. 

" Slavery is a crime, and a real lover of his race and country 
will put a wall of fire around it. Some wall dare to die yet, as so 
many have done on the border. You have a college started, and I 
hear your prayers, and this spirit will save the country. Slavery 
cannot endure a college, or a prayer that goes above the roof." 
Three clergymen spoke kindlj^, and prayed for the safety of the 
company and Kansas. A collection was taken, and an offer of 
food to take on the way. The sentiment was far from a unit. 
Tabor had deprecated the raid; and, to save burning as a town and 
fines, that would be a wise course for Grinnell; but, the counsels 
of age and a dash of strong talk overcame all, leaving the hero and 
company to shake hands, and a parting "God bless you". It was 
an educational meeting of a high order, bracing for a feared con- 
flict between the marshal and Brown's company. 

Reaching home I found a stage agent or driver, with a message. 
Here we have the hero outside the church. The marshal, Mr. 
Workman, of Iowa City, was an ex-senator, postmaster, and a per- 
sonal friend in securing a right of way for the railroad of which 
I was a director. He wrote, " You can see that it will give your 
town a bad name to have a fight there ; then all who aid are liable, 
and there will be an arrest or blood. Get the old Devil away to 
save trouble, for he will be taken, dead or alive." Of course it 
was my first duty to tell Brown the situation. 

"Yes, I have heard of him ever since I came to the state, and 
perhaps I better leave the house and take to the barn, but I tell 
you all such soldiers are cowards, and can be stampeded like cattle. 
My word is, tell him we are ready to be taken, but will wait one 
day more for his military squad." Going over to the hotel to send 
the message by the stage, a plausable democrat gave me some 
advice, and said he might be enrolled to kill a nigger thief, 
but didn't want me hurt. At home I found the door ajar to the 
room that contained the arms. " There be six Richmonds in the 
field " — no, six on the floor, sleeping on their arms, grasping a 
weapon on the first sound. Brown was up stairs asleep, well 
armed, and came down to breakfast in good cheer and talkative. 

" We are prepared, and you see we cannot be surprised. Raw 
recruits shoot too high ; the body is a larger mark than the head, 



216 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

and men wounded in the bowels or breast make a greater panic 
than dead ones. I advise that we take the hind sight of our 
guns, then reserve fire. Don't think of volunteers among your 
people — nothing but spies and thickets trouble me. I do wish 
that we had co-transportation through Illinois, to save time and 
perils to my company. If I dared I should report to Dr. S. G. 
Howe of Boston, or friends ; there is no trusting the Post Office 
and I use a cipher." 

Here was the hero in the possible meeting of a drilled company 
— thought to be three to one — and allured by glory in democratic 
service and thousands of dollars in reward. 

Good as his word. Brown waited, and then loaded the Avomen 
and chattels, with the baggage, into the canvas-covered Avagons, 
led by dashing riders, and a rear guard armed like moving arse- 
nals. The young child (named after him) was in his arms on the 
front seat, the mother still ill, and he lifted his hat, waving a 
cheerful adieu, and the company passed out of sight, bound for the 
Quaker settlement in Cedar County. A lively discussion was kept 
up in the town, until the return news came that they were to be 
sent in a car as stock, secretly, from West Liberty to Chicago. 
The circumstances were these : I had meanwhile gone to Chicago, 
as a wool-shipper, and from the late John F. Tracy, superintend- 
ent, engaged a stock car for the fugitives from AVest Liberty to 
Chicago at fifty dollars. The kind of freight was not named, and 
the democratic manager, while suspicious, was kept in ignorance. 
When too late the permission was withdrawn, for the outfit had 
filled the car, and Brown was so fully aware of the value of cau- 
tion that there was only a secret unloading in Chicago. It Avas in 
vain that I offered the freight money, Mr. Tracy saying, '^ I Avould 
not accept it for ten thousand dollars since we might be held for 
the value of every one of the niggers." Yet, it was true that the 
real owners of the railway property were not averse to the new 
species of freighting. 

Where was the valiant Marshal Workman? That radical of 
the time, William Penn Clark, Avith Dr. Jesse BroAvn, Avere also 
engaged in securing transportation, and tauntingly urged Workman 
to get out his company, less valiant the more they heard of BroAvn. 
The old hero had gauged the slave hunter. Eeed's Johnson 
County History has the folloAving: 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 217 

"It immediately became street talk in Iowa City that Brown, with a large 
party of fugitive slaves, was in the vicinity ; and, as a reward of three thousand 
dollars had been offered by the authorities of Missouri for the arrest of the negroes, 
the disinterested advocates of the rigid enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law 
began to discuss the propriety of collecting a mob and marching on Pedee and cap- 
turing Brown and his jiarly. Sam Workman, then postmaster at Iowa City, was 
the captain of the gang organized for this purpose, but Bi-own having returned a 
reply breathing quiet defiance to Workman's threat of capturing him, the postmas- 
ter, after consulting his friend Captain Kelly, an Irish gentleman of great emi- 
nence — that is to say, six feet and seven inches tall — deferred the undertaking." 

The account in Sanborn's Life of John Brown I assume to be 
true. It is only the truth that Grinnell had been a station on the 
underground railway, but the departures had been in the night and 
the adventurers not generally known. Certainly the event had 
found no local publicity, attended Avith cost if not personal peril. 
The ''broadbrims" were usually conductors of a covered wagon. 
Now and then a daring, safe driver would have at his side a broad, 
double-faced bull-dog, a device which kept curious persons from 
investigating the quality of the freight. At an early day there 
were quiet camping places for the day, and rest for a resumption 
on the journey at dark. 

The great railroad manager, H. M. Hoxie, now dead, showed 
his early spirit and aptness when in the family of the founder of 
Mitchelville, near Des Moines. "Uncle" and Hon. Thos. Mitchell, 
now under a whitening crown, can invite the statute of limitation 
as a bar to his youthful law breaking, for he taught what he 
practiced with the ardor of a new convert and the efficiency of a 
field marshal. The late and lamented H. M. Hoxie was a protege 
of his, and the pleasure and excitement of "helping on a darky" 
was only heightened, even after he became county clerk, by a 
knowledge that with his native adroitness he had got the pursuers 
on the wrong track. 

This is a sample of the cipher messages of the time, and a judi- 
cious device, as both Mr. Mitchell and I raised sheep. We were 
afraid of the mails and the following letter was delivered by a 
trusted stage passenger: 

"Dear Grinnell: Uncle Tom saysaf the roads are not too bad you can look 
for those fleeces of wool by to-morrow. Send them on to test the market and price, 
and no back charges. Yours, Hub." 

They came at night, and were the darkest, saddest specimens of 



218 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

humanity I have ever seen, glad to camp on the floor, while the vet- 
eran was a night guard with his dog and a miniature arsenal, ready 
for use on alarm. Breakfast over, for obvious reasons they chose 
a refuge in the barn until dark, and while filing out, one observed 
a colored picture on the wall, representing the Saviour on a cross, 
and shouted, "Marsa, what they doing with that fellow up thar?" 
The reply was, " Crucifying the Saviour." "What's dat?" "Tak-. 
ing His life — it is Jesus." 

The later career of Brown, with the safe arrival of his spoil 
from the southern prison house, in Canada, came to be well known. 
It is described in volumes by Redpath and Webb Sanborn, with 
the Virginia invasion, capture at Harper's Ferry, and execution 
at Charlestown, Va., after a show of trial in December, 1859. 
There is a personal item not to be forgotten. Captain Brown 
wrote me of his safe arrival among the Quakers and in Chicago, to 
which I replied with good wishes. 

From Springdale, the following letter was written, as appears 
in Sanborn's life of the hero, headed, " Reception at Grinnell, Iowa, 
compared with Tabor " : 

1. Whole party find teams kept for two days free of cost. 

2. Sundry articles of clothing given to the captives. 

3. Bread, meat, cakes, pies, etc., prepared for our journey. 

4. Full houses for two nights in succession, at which meetings Brown and 
Kagi spoke, and were loudly cheered and fully endorsed. Three Congregational 
clergymen attended the meeting on Sabbath evening (notice of which was given 
from the iiulpit). All of them took part in justifying our course and in urging con- 
tributions in our behalf. There was no dissenting speaker at either meeting. Mr. 
Grinnell spoke at length and has since labored to procure us a free and safe con- 
veyance to Chicago, and effected it. Contributions in cash amounting to ^26.50. 
Last but not least, public thanksgiving to Almighty God offered up by Mr. Grin- 
nell in behalf of the whole company for His great mercy and protecting care, with 
prayers for a continuance of these blessings, etc. 

Our reception among the Quakers here has been most cordial. Yours truly, 

John Brown. 

On his capture a hundred letters or more were found in his 
possession, mine with others, supposed to i,ndicate a political con- 
spiracy, and punishable by fine and imprisonment. Senator J. M. 
Mason of Virginia, author of the fugitive slave law, at the earli- 
est moment introduced a resolution to investigate Avith large 
powers. The Satanic press gloated over the character of the cul- 
prits, prejudged, and northern timid partisans were nervous, even 
malignant in spirit. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 219 

Senator James W. Grimes from Iowa, by letter advised me at 
once that I should get out of the way or have the company of a 
marshal to Washington. It would not be just to name friends 
who advised a visit and stay in Canada until the storm was over, 
or to mention the fears of those who held that the party would 
suffer by my radicalism, for I was then a state senator. There 
was no time for delay, and, secretly to my nearest friends, I left 
for Washington, to answer, passing the United States marshal, 
with his requisition, as I learned, at Pittsburg. I called on Sena- 
tor Grimes first, and by his advice reported to Senator Mason. 

''Where is the officer?" Said the pompous senator, "I can- 
not say when you will be wanted. Can you give a bond to 
appear ? " 

"No, sir; but I am here ready to ansAver, and have escaped 
the company of an officer to meet a scowl." 

I wrote a note to my senator, urging that I had staid long 
enough, after a week, but should not leave secretly, and asked for 
my rights and an early examination. 

The witnesses called, and escapes of the suspected, is a part of 
the great sensational drama, and I retired only after a long delay 
and a threat by Senator Grimes to bring my case up before the 
senate, if not early heard or discharged. Mason, by his clerk, said 
I was too willing a witness, and could go, but I could have no let- 
ters of my own writing, and there were no fees, and pride as to my 
company would lose my railroad fare. 

Recounting all relating to the Brown tragedy, nothing is so 
strange as the revulsion of public sentiment in the conviction that 
the hero of the century appeared as the mighty agent in awaken- 
ing public sentiment to the enormities of that system for which a 
man "dared to die". Mistakes are easily named after the battle is 
lost. The place was unfortunate, and there was vain trust in the 
spirit of the slave, afraid to strike for his liberty. But the valor 
of the man and cowardice of oppressors made it true that they exe- 
cuted a hero not for a crime but for the exposure of cowardice. 

I long since put in the flames letters of commiseration and 
excerpts from the warnings against my delusion. Now I can 
name Seward, who placed the martyr's picture beside heroes, to 
remind of duty and God. Brown's life becomes majestic by the 
highest standard ; more pathetic than romance, stranger than his- 
tory, than all legendary tales ; a compeer of lion hearts who have 



220 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

honored a scaffold. He is immortalized, the soul marching on 
with the legion of soldiers, inspiring them in the camp, on the 
march and in assault. "His soul is marching on." 



HORACE GREELEY. 

Horace Greeley was the unquestioned great journalist of the 
century. T knew him forty years ago, ever the object of curiosity 
in public assemblies — the prolific subject of caricature by the nov- 
ice and the sordid political hireling. In his latter days his form 
was bent, and, with a wabbling gait, flowing flaxen locks, old white 
coat, banged hat, neck-tie awry, he was a distant remove from that 
semblance of a tailor-made man — Carlyle's clothes dummy; but 
the touch of that soft, delicate hand and the parian-white, comely, 
massive head, the very impersonation of beauty and power, was 
never jeered save by shallow sacrilegious scribblers, too obtuse to 
see set on that brow "the seal of a god". 

It is well known that Mr. Greeley avowed in public, in private 
by letter, and speech, that he had wasted breath and entreaty on 
thousands to gain free air and independence out of the city, and 
that I, as before narrated, was the young man who heeded "Go 
West, young man ! Go West ! " 

From the city of Grinnell, in 1871, he wrote a letter quite too 
profuse in praise, yet a picture of the seat of Iowa College, an insti- 
tution of five hundred students, and of the beauty of the place, to 
which, without reservation, I subscribe. I could make only a fee- 
ble return to his compliments by a dinner party in his honor at St. 
Nicholas Hotel in New York. I indulge here in personal reminis- 
cences Avhich have the merit of freshness rather than of worn 
stories or doubtful legends. 

His fidelity as a historian of the war is proven by an incident. 
There was a wide and Avarm discussion as to the positions and 
behavior of a certain general in battle, and the issue. To gain the 
truth apart from officer and romancer, he wished to hear the story 
of a private regular soldier on duty, then miles away from Wash- 
ington. He asked me to accompany him, he being in disguise, 
with a pretext to call out the soldier, and guage the witness in the 
honesty of a simple, social narrative. To military men it was a 
secret, but all related to his history of the actors, the issue and 



REMINISCENCES OF FOETY YEAH 8. 221 

strategy of war. He gained what he desired, only by a cold, 
muddy ride of six miles. 

Mr. Greeley was too thoughtful for idle questions, yet .would 
occasionally unbend. Once I said to him, " There is a plot to get 
your white coat as a joke." "I know it," he said, "the sneaks 
have been on my track for years, but money wouldn't buy it, and 
I should never hear the last of it if stolen." During his stay in 
Iowa, while awake, the coat was never out of sight, and at night 
was by his pillow, though he could not have suspected us as in the 
conspiracy. He had explained his attachment to old things — hat, 
shoes, that were suited to him, and like old friends not to be 
parted with. 

The overland stage ride to California evinced his courage, as 
well as invited hardships, to give the public the best views of the 
new El Dorado. Blessings did brighten on the frontier as they 
took their flight, and while stories of the journey became lame in 
traveling, yet many of them were authentic. " How was it about 
that perilous ride with the driver?" "That's true — I never could 
express my fright ; and my comrades, passengers, were, in the lan- 
guage of the Irishman, 'past shpaking'." 

It was the most courageous adventure of a great editor, mock- 
ing the dangers incident to stage robbery, uncomplaining, con- 
fronted with hardships, awa,ke while others slept, writing — his 
knees or a cracker box for a table — while companions cracked 
jokes, drawing on their bottles for exhilaration. They were dole- 
ful in laments for a people doomed to live in such a country, and in 
doubt of tlie wisdom of a Kuler who tolerated such wastes, depre- 
ciating the might of a World-maker. Mr. Greeley saw in future 
years the water locked in reservoirs, the lands irrigated, gold mined 
by new processes, and homes of comfort and content by the 
mountain. 

" Across the Continent." This volume of travels is the lumi- 
nous track made by the pen of an unarmed crusader. The notes 
were made not for revision, and to be graced by wit and rhetoric, 
but thrown off warm for a hungry people, readers of the JVew York 
Tribune, scientists, political economists and philosophers. It was 
a new page of facts, an unvarnished tale, then read as romance, 
now read by later travelers on a Pullman car, as the forecast of a 
keen observer, the vision of an ardent American. He wrote more 
truth than all before him saw, and gave the headland pictures for 



222 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

imitators who came after him, not blurred by change or time. 
John Brown and his battles, the Kansas border war, politicians in 
conventions, the argument for the Pacific Eailway, and the route, 
Indians, Brigham Young and Mormons, mining in Nevada and Cal- 
ifornia, the people in character and aspiration, the Golden Gate 
and Avhite-winged commerce — all these were taken in by his pene- 
trating and comprehensive eye. 

I give only samples, laconic records of pioneer, border simplic- 
ity in 1859 : 

"May 12th, Chicago. Chocolate and morning newspapers last 
seen at breakfast. 

23d. Leavenworth. Room bells and baths make their final 
appearance. 

24th. Topeka. Beefsteak and wash-bowls (other than tin), 
last visible. Barber ditto. 

26th. Manhattan. Potatoes and eggs last recognized. Chairs 
ditto. 

27th. Junction City. Last visitation of boot-black, with dis- 
solving views of board bedroom. Bedsteads a good-by. 

28th. Pipe Creek. Benches at meals disappearing, giving 
place to bags and boxes — we Avrite on laps by turns, and on express 
baggage, which supplies us with lodgings at night. 

As to the Indians Mr. Greeley in private. as well as by pen 
laughed at the romances of the Indians, holding that they were all 
children — they made no progress, were feared and hated, Avasting 
in huts, on the limits of human existence. Pontiac and Tecumseh 
were no doubt noble felloAvs, but the race has disappeared. 

"Well, about the whiskey and water at the station?" "Yes, 
yes, I remembered it — we drank together — ^he took the whiskey 
and I took the water. The scribblers are anxious to get a fresh 
goose to pluck; that is a part of the trade, and I have compassion- 
ated many a poor devil in my leisure as a news-hunter." 

His characteristic stories are without number; I give one — 
that of a hand-car ride. 

"I had to reach an Indiana appointment for a lecture, but the 
locomotive failed us. I told my introductory story with an apol- 
ogy for my delay, Avhich brought out the only laugh heard from 
that audience. I placed the hand-car boys under good pay, yet, 
getting Aveary and myself chilled on the car, proposed to help. I 
took off my hat, and, Avith hair streaming, coat-skirts in the Avind, 



BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 223 

I did duty, reminded of the monotony of turning the grindstone 
when a boy, before breakfast. Soon my hands began to burn, with 
blisters swelling my fingers — they were painful, and all occa- 
sioned by forgetting to let the handle turn freely. The audience 
was good natured, but I was weary and crippled, and hinted that I 
might want a small boy to turn the leaves ; but, in the humor of 
narration, pictured myself and the painful outcome. ' Friends,' I 
said, ' I will now proceed with a single reflection suggested by a 
lame back, palsied fingers and general debility. As for hand-car 
rolling, whatever may be said of it as an exercise, I don't conscien- 
tiously recommend it for an amusement.' This, I judge, they took 
for a clever jest by the cheers it brought out, for they were the 
first and last of the evening." 

One day he said, " I know I am no orator, and why do they 
keep me on the go ? " My answer was, " It is your fame as an 
editor, and a tone with accent far more novel than entertaining. 
Kow there's your lecture on poetry — long, deep, and that high 
key and round ' powetry ' falls into the ludicrous." "■ If that 
makes a laugh I'll burn the thing." 

Farmers' and State Fair Meetings were his delight, and these 
are incidents connected with his speech at Des Moines, Iowa, in 
1871. Mr. J. S. Clarkson, editor of the State Register, late assist- 
ant postmaster-general, called upon him in my company for his 
address in full, or the heads. Mr. Greeley answered, " I like your 
enterprise, but I don't know a word I am to say — I hope your 
reporter may learn that I talked about deep plowing — I must have 
one hour for sleep, and then one for dinner and to get ready." He 
took a small sheet of paper and cut it into twenty or more slips, 
marked 1, 2, etc. and with each number a word or a sentence to 
guide his thoughts ; as fast as used it was his habit to lay them 
down in their order. He spoke from a new wagon, to a great 
crowd, saying to me, before speaking, " As I am very stupid, if I 
drop a stich, when I bend my head for a taste of water you hint a 
word if you think the case requires it." 

Near the close, in this office of mentor I said, "trees," and there 
was a brilliant passage; later, "farmers' education," and he 
branched out to say, " Lands held by ignorant owners were worth 
no more by the acre than lands in Sodom." The " city " was men- 
tioned, and response came, "Des Moines has a great future, but 
you are proud enough now without my flattery." The speech was 



224 REMINISCENCES OF FOliTY YEARS. 

a great success, and confirms his fame for versatility and the poise 
of a great educator. 

His was a warm heart, decrying capital punishment as a cruel 
barbarism. Yet he would, without the least compunction, by the 
merciless strictures of his pen, inflict greater pain than caused by 
a gibbet. Shams, the idle, dissipated society, felt his keen lance, 
yet unfortunates, like young Vanderbilt, personally without money 
or credit, could gain thousands by Mr. Greeley's indorsement, a 
sample in a long role of dependents living on a good nature Avhich 
rendered him poor, while he might honestly have been nearly a 
millionaire. There was, too, a sample of his paradoxical nature, 
when, doubting orthodox punishment in the hereafter, he would 
with towering indignation consign villanies and villains to the 
penal abode of hell in the "old version". 

Mr. Greeley was in certain moods a fine talker, with positive 
convictions as to men. Speaking of early men, and newspaper 
writers, he said : " On the New Yorker, merged in the Log Cabin of 
1840, I did my best and most satisfactory campaign service. I 
detested mere partisanship, and strove to elevate the masses, and 
strike at pretenders ready to sell or bow to the South on smooth 
promises and half pay. You cannot make a good bargain with 
Tammany cohorts and southern allies. Union meant slavery 
sacred. I never want to engage in the pack-horse business to take 
along luggage, better to be dumped in tke sea or burned." 

On another occasion, there was a gathering of friends on return 
from a Texas visit. On the next morning we met. Said Mr. Gree- 
ley, "Did you look in the eye my best friend who called the 
guests ?" " Yes, a fine, genial man you mentioned often as Chaun- 
cey." "Well, keep track of him. He, as the tailors say of the 
cloak, has the making of a good coat. You will hear from him as 
rich in wit, a scarce article, and the rising orator of the day. It is 
safe to say what Chauncey M. Depew ought to be in the nation." 

A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE IN 1872. 

It has often been said, but not with truth, that he sought the 
liberal nomination. From his letter to me, a delegate at Cincin- 
nati, I extract: 

" Leave my name out of the question as a candidate. We ought 
to unite on Judge Davis of Illinois — the old friend of Mr. Lin- 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 225 

coin. Of Grant say, his nepotism is a scandal — surroundings any- 
thing but fragrant. Now is the time to strike for the one-term 
principle — give full credit, as I do, to our military president, Avhen 
preferring a civilian for a change. Write full news as to friends — 
your letter cheers me." 

At his office, in company with Ex-Governor Fenton, the follow- 
ing conversation was had: "I read that account of the state polit- 
ical fusion of Des Moines, and the funeral services on the burial of 
the old democratic party. Mr. Irish (Hon. John P. Irish, now of 
California) was really eloquent for a Bourbon, but I doubt if the 
'remains' will allow the grave to sod over, even with extra atten- 
tion of a sexton at the genteel burial." This was in anticipation 
of a revolt, and a clear political forecast of the Bourbons who lay 
in wait to compass his defeat. It was at his desk in the heat of 
the convass, Avhen a score of political letters were passed over to 
me as curiosities, indicating the spirit of the campaign. Mr. Gree- 
ley commented : 

"The theoretical free trader wants me to modify on the tariff 
to help our cause — then a distiller thinks a few soft words would 
take out the sting and hold the democrats. It would be policy for 
the South to mildly discount the abuse of Jeff Davis. There is no 
end to the slurs from the North on account of my going on the 
Davis bond — if I did help get a big elephant off our hands. He 
had a right to a trial after a long imprisonment, if not to be hung, 
and was fast sizing up to be a martyr. Any man but an obtuse 
demagogue would have seen it. These hints and advice I burned 
unanswered. What do they take me for ? The penalty of a nom- 
ination is silence, and diluted opinions I shall not put on the 
market, for I haven't any for the occasion. It is out of the ques- 
tion to rise above the dignity of a jumping-jack." Turning to Gov- 
ernor Eenton, he said : '' Can you suggest any creature in my place 
for vicarious suffering? I am in a straight-jacket, but if it were 
you, you could have worn it without exposing political foibles, as a 
pleasant irritation. The machine is under full steam, and there is 
a money scare which will array the timid and sneaks against us; 
but I am going among the people for country air and to speak." 
He did go. 

The political addresses by Mr. Greeley, in number, vigor and 
depth, were an astonishment to the crowds who listened. In 
Indiana especially, the home of great stumpers and politicians, 



226 BEMINISCENCES OF FOETY YEARS. 

there was nothing worthy of comparison intellectually to the phi- 
losopher candidate. The canvass was then bringing on insomnia 
and nervous debility, prompting the remark that " if I should be 
elected president I could never serve ". He was conscious that he 
was making the last draft on a colossal, weary brain. He was 
adjuring his country to lay party on the altar of fraternity, to 
insure peace, the end of sectional strife, and national oneness ; and 
truly his words were like the song of the dying swan, singing 
sweetest in the death-notes. It was too late for arguments. 
Venality had a price ; senility, a refuge ; youth, a yearning for a 
victory shout. The bright stars whi-ch shone over the liberal party 
in August were obscured by the dark, ominous clouds of October; 
and a caricatured, maligned servant of his party, for thirty years, 
plainly read defeat at the watching by the bedside of a sick wife 
and with the added premonition that he was soon to follow her. 

THE END. 

I never indulged in severe denunciation of General Grant, but 
expressed my opinion that we had use for a civilian, and that the 
general's fame would be more assured by one term than by two. 
Thus it was not defeat as a partisan, but sorrow for Mr. Greeley in 
his domestic grief, and his defeat, that made me a caller on him 
before a full return of the presidential canvass. The public had 
faint hints as to his health, and it was only as a personal favor that 
I was admitted to the editorial rooms of the Tribune, to witness 
the culmination and close of the sad visits for twenty-five years. 

Mr. Whitelaw Eeed, managing editor and ever a gentleman, was 
cordial, and we held conversation unnoticed by Mr. Greeley, who 
was writing. To engage his attention Mr. Reed said, ''Mr. Grin- 
nell of Iowa calls to see you." The pen was dropped, and I 
entreated him not to rise, being shocked by his limp, bony hand, 
sunken eye and wan expression. The voice was off key, tremu- 
lous and low, and I ventured to express admiration for his speeches 
in the canvass, and lioped that he would soon find rest. Oh, the 
despairing look! "Xo — all is gone! I am worn out watching 
by my sick wife! It's all lost — nothing left — a rout — friends 
stranded Avho have done everything — and nothing left but honor, 
in the wreck Avhere I go down." He took up his pen tremulously 
to finish an article he was writincr, when soon there was a call and 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 227 

notice that the carriage was waiting; then, with a wikl stare, he 
said, " I will go ! " casting with a sigh the last glance upon his 
desk. I accompanied him down the stairs through the office, where 
in the countenance of the employees you read sorrowful apprehen- 
sion; and the remark was confirmed, "This is our last look on Mr. 
Greeley alive." Unknown to him, by a pretext, he was taken to a 
private medical retreat which he never left ; and thus I saw him 
write his last editorial lines, and this was a sad farewell. 

That his death was by political disappointment is only a cruel 
suggestion, repelled by every intimate friend of the great journal- 
ist. His work was done. Long and severe tension weakens the 
toughest metals — mental strain and anguish heated a brain in a 
fiery alembic, "loosing the silver cord." Not by political assas- 
sins, but by excessive toil, the brain was softened — clouded, to be 
emancipated for a higher realm. A great heart, strong and warm 
in pulsation for sixty-one years, ceased to beat. 

HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Mr. J. B. Pond, for many years Mr. Beecher's agent and travel- 
ing companion, said that my house in Grinnell, where he staid, 
was the only house where he became a guest during all his years of 
journeying while lecturing. This fact, with the civilities and com- 
pliments exchanged in correspondence, give occasion for the follow- 
ing biographical incidents. They become a key to open to me a 
unique chapter in the phases of personal life for more than forty 
years. They will furnish more than mere incidents to that full 
biography which yet remains to be written. No statesman, presi- 
dent or general, has been so often mentioned by his countrymen 
for the last forty years, and with a distinction for which there 
were obvious reasons. He held the office of an educator, conspicu- 
ous to the public gaze, and no subject w^as omitted cognate to 
American life. The very hill-tops and mountains of thought were 
climbed by him, far above the quiet beaten paths of the serene 
valleys. He was a pioneer in service in every sphere where bold- 
ness summoned and a genius like his was attracted. Indifferent to 
personal reward, he was fearless in the forum of his choice. 

Do I hear the cavil on the mention of his fame: "He left no 
system of theology, though a divine ? " Granted. He removed 
cobwebs and dust from the volumes of the old, stimulating inde- 



228 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

pendent thonght and warming the cold and repulsive, while leav- 
ing truth in a new dress. From nature's armory he drew weapons, 
useless with the rust of neglect. This was an estimate of my 
friend on hearing the sad news of his illness : 

" If he is dead, he has passed away according to his often- 
expressed wish, that he ' might not tarry on the shore between the 
living and the dead'. Here in Grinnell he has often spoken — 
three times my guest and myself much oftener his during the last 
forty years. For Mr. Beecher there will be to-day thousands of 
tributes from all over the civilized world. Those only will give 
the full measure of a great career that do not magnify the blunders 
of a bold genius and thinker, the frailties of a humanitarian, yet 
innocent of the vices with which jealousy, craft, and the unchari- 
table without investigation, have associated his name. Since the 
Tilton and Moulton conspiracy ten years ago, he has achieved 
more than any one of the 'suspicious brothers'; he has held as by 
hooks of steel the brave, great friends of forty years, and the sec- 
ond largest congregation in the United States, in a missionary 
location far from the abodes of fashion. 

''He will live as one of the boldest, most genial and great- 
hearted of men. Liberal with a reason, fraternal in practice, fear- 
less in the use of language, with a child's simplicity and a giant's 
strength. All the flowers that bloom and the trees that wave he 
could call by name. In his brain were the world's battlefields, and 
for all the great captains he had a biography. No one but him 
abashed a foreign rebel mob. His lectures to young men, written 
at thirty, have never been equaled. Speaker for all classes, and 
preacher, his printed words would fill one hundred volumes — 
twice the product of any American clergyman, with only a rare 
repetition of incident or figure, at once fresh, warm, poetic, emo- 
tional and grand, all free from pedantry, simulation and cant. 
Who held a warmer place in the hearts of the million ? Who 
more endeared, or with a higher claim to the generous judgment of 
mankind ? " 

He had a memory for generalization which was a most remark- 
able accomplishment, yet to quote poetry or philosophy Avith verbal 
correctness, or to give exact dates, was quite out of the question; 
but a story once known the spirit was forever his. I give this inci- 
dent in proof that he was one of the widest readers of men, with 
all the aptitudes of a philosophic historian: 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 229 

Over thirty years ago I was present at his house when a mili- 
tary committee of the soldiers of 1812 called on him to make the 
annual oration in Broadway Tabernacle. He said: "I am busy. 
Give me a few days to decide." "Ah, but the meeting is to-night." 
To which Mr. Beecher replied: "You wish me to speak to thous- 
ands of people on three hours' notice. Do you take me for a race 
horse, to go at the tap of a drum, or a hand organ, to bring forth a 
tune upon winding? But I see you are in a lurch, tell me all 
about it ? " Amidst the blushes it was made known that General 
Dix, the orator, was sick, and his military substitute was at sea. 
<'And now," said Mr. Beecher, "you wish to decoy a peacemaker 
into showing his ignorance, and to applaud a war which honest 
diplomacy would have avoided ; but if you will take the risk, I will 
come." At which the grateful generals departed. 

I then remarked, "Mr. Beecher, I fear you cannot afford the 
effort; time is short, this is not in your line of thought, and a 
mighty crowd of the cultured military circles will be present." 
"Yes, yes, I know, and mother (Mrs. Beecher) frowns at my ven- 
ture. Let us go to dinner and talk it over, while I draw from 
your deep wells and see if I come up with empty buckets." The 
sequel confirmed what the orator said, "The map recalls every 
battle by land or by sea, the generals and admirals, the actors, 
their prowess, their failures and their part in our politics since. 
You corner me on a date, I see, but not on a man." 

I was an auditor that night at the Tabernacle, and such mirth 
and cheers! He spoke of war as a method; the actors; General 
Cass breaking his sword ; the tars on Lake Erie ; Jackson behind 
a cotton bale at New Orleans ; and all with compliments that made 
"the braves" both blush and be astonished at their own valor. 
The Morning Press with columns of reports, said, "It was the 
most learned, witty and apt oration of the century on warriors at 
peace," 

The dinner of the New England Society of New York has for 
a half century been held as the grand oratorical feast of the nation. 
An after dinner speech few orators are equal to, but there the great 
preacher shone. Wit flowed like water babbling from a mountain 
spring. It was spontaneity. General Sherman exclaimed, " There 
is punishment again after Beecher." I don't think it was any bet- 
ter to go before him. Two of the presidents remarked to me " that 
out of the hundreds of speakers Beecher alone more than met 



\ 



230 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

expectation" — not in the line of General Porter and Depew, the 
princes of table orators, whose real and convulsive wit is efferves- 
cent, but in deep currents, beautiful flights and mirthful incidents, 
given with a pure Saxon in pleasing cadence that for many years 
made his absence from the dinner like the play of Hamlet with 
Hamlet left out. On one great occasion at the conclusion of a fine 
speech, when complimented, he said, "I had all the advantage of 
a surprise." On his first visit to Kew York, he came to make one 
platform speech, but made many with astonishing climax, and 
when called upon by a thousand voices to " Go on," " Go on," he 
paused to say, " You would with your force-pumps make even your 
Hudson dry at a low stage of boating." 

After the great church council, before the conspiracy was 
unmasked, the largest ever convened on this continent, I said 
to Mr. Beecher: "Do you know what had more to do than all 
speeches or witnesses or records with the unanimous vote ? It 
was your Sunday morning sermon, 'Under God'. That ended 
doubts and ripened friendships in a dark hour." 

"I moulded it in an hour after breakfast." Later, being asked 
why he did not rest, as he was now past seventy, he said : " To 
keep still would be death. The reviled Jew, with the only real 
pedigree, has a claim on me. Also Catholics — I am not one, but 
the thoughts and heroism of their saints make me forget the Inqui- 
sition, remembering jealous Christian inquisitors who would gloat 
over my oozing blood. Let me die early if I make no protest 
against dogmatic intolerance and fail to ask the breath of God to 
stir the stagnant pools." 

His England speeches for our Union made a fitting topic of 
thought for the civilized world. He saved our cause with more 
than the skill of a diplomat, and the courage of a field marshal in a 
Napoleonic charge. It was a necessary conflict on a foreign shore, 
and it was easy to call out the great orator in review of that single 
combat, regarding himself as sent by God in personal service to his 
country in the war for freedom and unity. The last European trip 
brought out this dinner talk just before his departure. "Will you 
take part in the Irish discussion?" "No; I go to see and speak 
— not as a partisan. Before, during our war, God sent me, and 1 
loved to fight. I want to see and hear Gladstone, the greatest of 
living men. I am for Ireland." "I know you do not surrender 
your Americanism." "Don't be alarmed, my dear boy; if I am an 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 231 

ignorant theorist here, it will be a pleasure to say we can teach an 
old mother tenderly. Onr industrial North has the finest villages 
and the happiest people on earth, in the sound of the hum of Yan- 
kee machinery." "That will be like you, in memory of your father 
who taught the nation on protection," I said. " But you cannot 
allow any speculation, because I am a financial failure, and I do 
not forget your introduction while West, that I was going to talk 
about a subject on which I knew nothing. The financial question 
is deep and dark, but I am too old to wear a straight-jacket. Free 
trade is a good way off, but John Bull, to whom we owe so little, 
will get small comfort from my visit in finance or policy." 

Beecher was true to his word and spoke with cool judgment 
abroad, like a true American, refusing to be caught by the free 
traders' blandishments or to side with the landlords. At this time 
he would be called only a pro tern democrat. " I am for real prog- 
ress, and my old friends will find that I have burned no bridges to 
prevent a return, and I have not a drop of mugwump blood, if that 
means a sluggish flow." 

I do not forget that late in life he was allured from a holy mis- 
sion, by zealous friends and constant importunity, to speak from a 
lower plane on fiscal science, in favor of the theories of free trade. 
Yet it was his sober opinion that he was a child in finance. An 
army of figures and a thousand conflicting theories were not suited 
to his mental calibre. A pardonable weakness, for, however tena- 
cious in theory, he was outspoken abroad in declaration that our 
factories and forges held an intimate relation to our advancing 
wealth, and to fair wages and comforts for the laborer. 

With his warmest friends in our sorrow, I never mentioned his 
political lapse, and his apology for his presidential choice. To 
mention the peculiar occasion of his hostility to Mr. Blaine would 
only be to recall the weaknesses of great men, forgotten in the halo 
of eminent service which tempers and recasts public opinion. He 
said at his own table, the last time I ever heard him mention the 
great name, "You worship brilliancy. I do not denounce but dis- 
trusted Blaine as a president, the more so as his magnetism pos- 
sessed our sober people," mentioning a half dozen prominent in his 
church. 

A deep emotional nature was a rare gift. It was brought out 
in the grief of others, as the brilliancy of stars when skirted with 
the dark clouds. I mention without coloring a tribute most honor- 



232 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

able to the parties. There was a great national religious council 
called in the city of Washington in 1853, embracing many of the 
most eminent laymen and divines of the country. It was my lot 
to be appointed one of a committee to notify the then president, 
Franklin Pierce, that it would be agreeable to call upon him in a 
body at the White House. We were welcomed by the accomplished 
president, who set an hour for our reception. As I was about 
closing the door to leave, the president said, "I should be happy to 
have you wait a moment and speak to Mrs. Pierce." He returned 
soon to say that Mrs. Pierce said at breakfast this morning she 
saw Mr. Beecher was in the city and she hoped to see him, and 
added, " If you will convey to him our compliments and say Mrs. 
Pierce would be glad to see him personally, I will esteem it a 
favor." The council called in a body, the president quietly taking 
Mr. Beecher's hand as the company left, and he was shown to Mrs. 
Pierce's room. The interview was a most remarkable one, the 
great preacher subsequently saying privately that he was never 
so overcome by the outpouring of an apparently broken heart. 
Their son, the only child in the family, was killed in a railway acci- 
dent, and the mother had scarcely smiled since the occurrence, and 
almost refused to be comforted. The counsellor ventured the hope 
that she would be lifted in her despondency, as she soon after was. 
The president himself afterward said he had no words to express 
his gratitude to the council for their call, and the soothing words 
of Mr. Beecher had a remarkable effect in dispelling the dark cloud 
which always seemed to hover over them, since by the death of 
their dear boy they were childless. 

Often when listening to his public prayers, I have thought that 
Mr. Beecher's supplications, so subdued in tone and in simple 
child-like entreaty, became his most effective appeal. Time did 
not lessen the impression, nor abate the novelty which forbade crit- 
icism of poetic outbursts, comforting and sweet to those in mourn- 
ing, who, like Mrs. Pierce, found solace in sorrow and a new 
occasion to hope. I once said to him in the West, "I was gla'd 
you made that long prayer." " Long, was it ? I am not conscious 
of it, nor can I recall anything I said, but if taken up in any good 
sense out of myself, I ought to be glad." He was as tender as if 
with tears flowing and voice often broken — an advocate before the 
great throne Avith such an effect on hearers as I have never seen 
elsewhere. This colloquy was overheard by two young revilers 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 233 

returning from Plymouth church: " How would you like to have 
Mr. Beecher pray for you ? " "I don't know. I looked about and 
saw a large number crying, and, but for j^ou, I should have wiped 
my eyes like other people."- The reply was, "That is just the way 
I felt." 

There were staying at the St. Nicholas hotel, New York, two 
railway magnates from the West, who debated about calling a car- 
riage at so late an hour to hear Mr. Beecher. The remark was 
made, "If the prayer is not over by the only man I ever heard 
pray, I do not care." I happened to be at the table on their return, 
when one of the company said, "I think Beecher knows how to 
talk with God. I never listened to such pathos. Talk about 
Shakespeare's sermons in brooks, etc., and the like, I can remem- 
ber more of that prayer than any plaj^ of Shakespeare or sermon 
since I was a boy. Yes, I will give a thousand dollars a year, with 
as little religion as I have, to hear him pray in our city, to say 
nothing about his preaching." All in proof that it was not a vain 
story that the way to find Beecher's church was to follow the Sun- 
day morning crowd from Fulton Ferry. The prayer welling up in 
words from the depths of a burdened spirit was only less effective 
than the Bible reading, in a subdued tone and with a solemnity 
that became worship, far removed from stage effect. It was fasci- 
nation in the presence of individuality so alluring. The imitators 
paid an unconscious tribute to devout genius. 

I give this as an instance of his emotional nature : At his last 
visit to my house in Grinnell, he wandered into my Liberty room, 
so called from its occupancy by John Brown and the adornment of 
the walls with historic characters. I found him standing before 
Brainard's picture, "The Champions of Freedom," as they were in 
the public mind thirty years ago, including the statesmen Seward, 
John P. Hale, Chase and Sumner, the editor Horace Greeley, the 
poet John G. Whittier, and Henry Ward Beecher. " The fallen, 
my friend," said he, "are immortal. None left but Whittier and 
myself," tears falling with the remark. "Why am I spared to 
keep company with the Quaker, whose verse has touched millions 
of hearts, born of a spirit etherial that cares not to tarry ; but I 
shall go first. To be set in that galaxy is beyond the honor of a 
crown. These heroes fell short of their ambition, but I who have 
been wading as through streams of sorrows rising to billows, am 
left, but I shall go next, and if it please God may it be soon. 



234 REMINISCENCES OF FOETT YEARS. 

May I not linger, with a brain clouded, an imbecile long on the 
shore." Then burying his face and sobbing almost convulsively, 
he said: "I never felt so much alone nor so old. Then I was 
auburn, now gray. Then only imps and the sordid reviled ; since 
I have had the companionship of dragons and the brotherhood of 
owls." I tried to cheer him as one of the most fortunate of mor- 
tals. "Yes," said he, "you are thinking of the council iu which 
you had a hand. What about Chamberlain (J. M.) of your college, 
whom I must see; also Merrill (J. H.), your Des Moines banker, 
and Doctor Salter of Burlington, and Doctor Beardsley, who came a 
thousand miles to help a poor, sympathetic fool out of trouble. 
They did it, and them I shall remember as my song and salvation, 
thwarting Satan with the new devotion of friends that hellish 
devices cannot alienate." 

In ending this sad tribute I can only regret that illness kept 
me from being present where my children were, at the sad obse- 
quies, paying a tribute to one who was enveloped in flowers, the 
aroma of which was his breath, and amidst the griefs of the people 
in Plymouth Church, who for near half a century felt for him an 
almost pardonable idolatry. I write in near view of the " Beecher 
elm", whose grateful branches salute me almost at the window. It 
is named for him who deemed it fitting that under our clear west- 
ern sky man might stand shoeless, like Moses on the holy ground, 
and with brow uncovered. Did he say that the chief use of the 
farm was to lie down upon ? It may have been of more value to 
him for contemplation than to its owner in fee. So is the tree to 
me, which inspired him who never touched nature but to deck it 
anew. I see him in raptures, reclining on the green sward on the 
hallowed Sunday of rest. We watched the flitting clouds, • and 
poetic waving of the leaves of the elm his pen has immortalized, 
standing in a native grace which forbids mutilation. Birds twit- 
tered and flitted above him in a new song, and there were kaleido- 
scope views which barred a mention of the wonders of the starry 
world as he broke forth : " See, there is the city of God. There is 
no picture of Jerusalem, there never will be a mirror of infinity, 
where the bounding heart is still and the brain at rest, that Avill 
compare with these glimpses in the heavens with the far beyond." 
It was more than a revery ; the reporter could not reproduce it ; 
memory only jots outlines in the rhapsody of one who will be 
remembered as so great because he drank at the sweet fountains of 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 235 

Nature, and turned so many thousands of the thoughtless and err- 
ing by the sorceries of his great heart in the promulgation of a 
gospel on a higher plane of life. He breathed the Christian 
beatitudes, while holding the white banner of charity to shame 
intolerance. Every recollection of him unlocks the fresh tears of 
personal friends and inspires warmer tributes to his genius, great 
heart and heroic life. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Some people 1 have met — John G. Saxe — George H. Corliss — 
Alpheus Hardy — Arthur Sherburne Hardy — Father Clark- 
son — W. F. Story — Edgar W. Nye — Joseph Cook — John B. 
Gough — Robert G. Ingersoll. 

JOHN GODFREY SAXE. 

It was at MidcUebury College in 1838, at a junior exhibition, 
that I heard the genial sj^eaker. In 1839 I was at his graduation. 
The young miss, who was my attendant, with our company in one 
of the sheep-pen gallery pews, marked our favorites, and the poeti- 
cal Saxe of a large class was mine. 

He was tall, and without apparent effort in the line^ of oddity 
and wit, in the colloquy where loud laughs followed the hits. 
Often we met during thirty years, he a versifying editor of a dem- 
ocratic newspaper and a lecturer. Fame he won as poet, and the 
chief of our best punsters, the public demanding forty editions of 
Ms works. As an editor he was jovial, brilliant in conversation, 
and making pleasure of his office work. 

If it is fame to be quoted, Saxe reached his goal. At my home, 
he was a refreshing story-teller. In the lecture room, we hung on 
his lips for the gems sparkling in the verse which his softened 
brain could not repeat years before his death in the city of Troy. 
But a friend or a kindness were never forgotten, before his final 
brain disease. The ripped coat which my wife mended after sup- 
per found repeated mention, with an odd adaptation given to a 
line from Shakespeare, or a stanza from Longfellow. 

GEORGE H. CORLISS. • 

The world knows George H. Corliss, of Providence, Ehode 
Island, master mechanical genius, who expended fifty thousand 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 237 

dollars in building and setting up tlie enormous centennial engine, 
now moving the wheels at Pullman, Illinois. Mr. Corliss' name 
and portrait are in our college museum, to which he readily gave 
twelve hundred dollars for the purchase of Professor Ward's entire 
series of geological casts ; this in addition to previous liberal gifts 
to the college. His name is blended with an honorable career in 
gifts, labors and. achievements. Medals in gold, decorations by- 
crowned heads I did not ask to see, when I called on him, but the 
ten acres of buildings, the work of a brain that cannot rest but in 
the construction of models which will push mechanism ahead a 
century, cheapening power and diffusing benefits over tlie civilized 
world. This hint is all I can give, and when I see one man mov- 
ing sixty tons on an axis by a hand, I am prepared to hear of 
exploits that will astonish men everywhere. There is no cry of 
strike about this colossal home of Vulcan — the god of smiths. 
The men are paid far above the scale of wages in the old world, 
and, none the less, their employer avows indifference to foreign 
competition. He is a high class, practical engineer, and the two 
hours he gave to us, amidst the wonders, we rega^-ded as a compli- 
ment to the Iowa he admires but has never seen. His views of 
men and national affairs are as clear and incisive as a perception of 
the demands of his great and exacting profession, whereof he is 
king and servant in all details. He was originally from Green- 
wich, New York, where, as resident for some time, I learned of his 
early history. He was a schoolmate of President Arthur, who said 
to me, "The Presidency is nothing, contrasted with the fame of 
Corliss." He died in 1888, overworked in a complete reconstruc- 
tion of his great plant of machinery, on new and improved plans. 

ALPHEUS HARDY. 

Alpheus Hardy, of Boston, died of blood poisoning. He was 
leisurely clipping off coupons with sharp shears, which fell from 
his hand with a painless stab in his thigh, discovered by a pool of 
blood and a gash, which was closed with the best surgical skill. 
Such was the slight casualty which ended the life of one of Kew 
England's best known and esteemed citizens and business phi- 
lanthropists. His wealth came by ships, and connection with the 
C, B. & Q. R'y and western land investments ; many of these were 
in Iowa, whose people and soil won his praise. He was a patron 



238 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

of Iowa College, his distinguished son, A. S. Hardy, residing in 
Grinnell for years as professor, now in Dartmouth with national 
fame as an author. 

Mr. Hardy was trustee of Dartmouth College and of Andover 
Theological Seminary, sustaining the liberals in demand for toler- 
ation in the church where he has been a light for near one half a 
centur}^, and a pillar in the "Old South Church" of Boston. I 
regret that I cannot make public recent social letters received, 
which become a full justification in declining his election at Des 
Moines as a member of the Prudential Board of Missions, where 
he had been the honored chairman for many years. He has left a 
great vacancy by service and devotion, begetting a spirit of toler- 
ation which will long survive his sad demise. The custody of the 
Sears estate, which brought the largest wealth to the young heir, 
Mr. Montgomery Sears, of any Boston boy, also brought wide repu- 
tation to Mr. Hardy, the administrator; but this is quite over- 
shadowed by the liberality, dignity and wisdom of a Christian pat- 
riotic statesman. He was a gentleman, affluent in gifts, a trusted 
friend, model citiaen, and humble servitor of a city and a church, 
where the name of the veteran Hardy will be the synonym of high 
character which eulogy can hardly ex&,lt. 

PROF. ARTHUR SHERBURNE HARDY. 

This gentleman is a son of the late Alpheus Hardy, and was for 
several years a professor in Iowa College. He was a casual writer 
of poetry and is now the noted author of abstruse mathematical 
works, also of the novels, "But Yet a Woman," "The Wind 
of Destiny," and biographer of the famous Christian Japanese, 
Joseph Neesima, of whom his noble father, Hon. Alpheus Hardy of 
Boston, was a patron. His life is quiet and unpretending, and he 
is now a professor in Dartmouth College. His ready mounting of 
Pegasus is in mind. I secured from Governor Merrill an invita- 
tion for him to write a poem for the laying of the corner-stone of 
the Iowa capitol in 1872. I was to read it — he had not the cour- 
age, he said. When it was brought to me at night for suggestions, 
I said with frankness, ''Very good; but you got to high for the 
occasion, you shoot over your auditors." " I am glad of the fail- 
ure," he said. "But," said I, "I must not discharge you, I will 
make a suggestion." I made several, but received no reply, only a 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 239 

moonlight salutation, as lie left my door. The next morning he 
appeared with the manuscript, fresh and adapted to win the praise 
of lovers of classic lore, as it did when I read it amidst hearty 
applause. The state magnates were full of admiration for his 
versatility as a West Point graduate. This was at least a happy 
augury of a brilliant future.* 

ELIHU BURRITT. 

Few receive such honor as this noted linguist by a personal 
mention in the message of Edward Everett, when governor of 
Massachusetts. It was a learned blacksmith attracting the world 
by genius ; a linguist, a peacemaker, advocating the policy of 
arbitration. A traveler he was, too, exposing the wrongs of the 
English factory system. All he touched was with a picturesque 
pen and cultured imagination, in testimony of the value of the clas- 
sics to the writer of English. 

Novelty as a learned blacksmith was supplemented by the 
broad, eloquent speaker on many themes. I sat in the enchant- 
ment of a mechanic who could read fifty languages'. 

In person, he was spare, forehead retreating, nose almost 
deformed in aquiline shape, voice shrill, but the whole bearing that 
of a simple-hearted teacher, a prophet of good, tolerant of all labor- 
ers, without egotistic assertion. You would love the man, as you 
had been drawn to the editor and statesman. He was a living 
example to our youth, furnishing testimony in the praise of a life 
unselfish, and adherence to great principles. He was the cham- 
pion of penny postage, the dismantling of war guns, rum shops 



* The versatile genius which enables a man to write in two consecutive sum- 
mers the most widely sold novels of the season and then prepare an exhaustive 
text-book on " Quarternions", is indeed rare. The ordinary mind sees nothing in 
common between fiction and the abstruse figures of geometry and naturally asks, 
How is it possible for the student who enjoys working all night over the dry mys- 
teries of conic sections to wield the light pen of the writer of pleasing romance? 
Still another strange fact is, that while Professor Hardy stands at the head as an 
authority on higher mathematics he abhors anything pertaining to arithmetic. 
Illustrative of this he said to a friend recently: " I never knew anything about fig- 
ures, and of all books in the world I abhor an arithmetic, so I sent the books back. 
My old professor at West Point was as deep a mathematician as I ever saw, and 
yet he would stand at the blackboard day after day and, nervously snapping his 
fingers in the midst of a 'sum', call out, 'Come, now, eight times seven, how 
much, how much is it? ' " Professor Hardy is the choice of the Alumni to succeed 
President Bartlett, the present aged head of the college. — Newspaper. 



240 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

outlawed, ignorance banished by universal education. Mr. Burritt 
was repulsed by a lady and never married, but can claim kinship 
to a great family of the truly noble, and his intellectual children 
are thousands. 

"FATHER CLARKSON." 

The sturdy senior Clarkson was known generally as "Father", 
but not because he was parent of the two brothers, noted as editors 
of the Iowa State Register' — one of them, "Ret" (James S. Clark- 
son), of late often mentioned as chairman of the republican 
national committee, and as assistant postmaster-general. I used 
to meet the father at his post-office town, Eldora, while on my way 
up to my new farm in Franklin County. The young men in ante- 
war times were on the "Melrose farm", two of Avhom are now 
known as "Richard the Third" and "Ret". I met the father at 
the Chicago National Convention in 18G0 as delegate from Iowa. 
We had such conservative notions as to cast our first votes for 
Judge McLean of Ohio, and next for Mr. Lincoln. At that time 
we were opening farms of which we talked, and were especially 
anxious for railways to come nearer to us. Small purchases were 
made in our line. His, perhaps, a saddle for the boys. I remen- 
ber mine to have been Yankee sheep shears. Next I found myself 
speaking in the political canvass when the elder Clarkson was 
elected state senator from Grundy, his district embracing several 
counties. In his place at Des Moines he soon became from a 
stranger a man of mark ; eminently practical, and so firm in the 
way of certain specialties as to be deemed perverse and obstinate ; 
certainly it Avas a futile attempt to drive him in committee or on 
the floor of the Senate from any well-considered opinion or policy, 
and his moulding power in the body is alike conceded Avith the wis- 
dom of his counsel. I cannot specify all his acts subsequent, for 
he was never idle where the rude elements of empire were woven 
and moulding into form. 

Soon he gave himself a local habitation and wide name by the 
farmer's letters to The Register. These I read closely and admired, 
for I was then Avriting for Mr. Greeley and the New York Tribune, 
and could make apt quotations if not affluent in original ideas. 
And it was no surprise that these letters expanded Avith a natural 
acorn growth into the agricultural department of The State Regis- 



BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 241 

ter — a luxuriant tree under whose graceful branches the weary 
sons of toil have shade and repose, and leaning against the stalwart 
trunk have for these years plucked pleasant and nutritious fruit. 
I do not indulge either in idle compliment or rhetorical figure, for 
this is the fact, I am told — I never counted them — that from 
forty to fifty newspapers are placed on our family tables weekly, 
and of the number The Register's agricultural page of Wednes- 
day's issue is most eagerly sought and first read. Nor am I alone, 
and if it is the high ambition o^ the editorial gods to be quoted 
and copied, and even to be gratuitously reviled, then the elder 
Clarkson can be proud of a successful career. His articles will 
be found eminently common sense, and so far saturated with per- 
sonality as never to suggest plagiarism. The role of a pioneer 
farmer he had a right to assume, and none ever doubted that he 
had the courage of his convictions, and was an adept in puncturing 
bubbles, and took particular delight in kicking shams into obscur- 
ity ; and even found use for dogs in hastening the retreating steps 
of foreign tree peddlers and oily-tongued patent right venders. 

At the state gatherings he was a central figure, reading his 
papers with the deliberation of a judge, and enlivening the debates 
with repartee, and from his storehouse of personal experiences 
becoming a valued instructor. I remember the applause that fol- 
lowed his sharp paper on "The Coming Steer", a plea "that his 
living statuary may ornament every farm and add beauty to the 
landscape on every hill and in every vale of Iowa's wide domain". 
The "Farm Literature", which was read at the state meeting of 
stock breeders, at Grinnell, was a generous tribute to the writers, 
not among the living; and plain truth for the conceited writers of 
the time, who raise such crops on paper as the ploughman and 
grazier of early days never anticipated in their wildest dreams. 
At the quarter centennial celebration at Grinnell, he gave a stud- 
ied and able speech on the advance of agriculture. 

Commend me to the man that dares to be singular ! He at 
least prevents a dead sea calm, and can seldom be charged with 
stupidity. And this is Mr. Clarkson. In face of the wise prairie 
farmers he would "spoil" his acres by deep ploughing and lo! corn 
cribs full and the compact sod of rich grasses. It was a waste of 
time to plant evergreens in this clime, but the fine grounds at Mel- 
rose Farm give, through clumps and lines of vigorous native pines, 
( music to their owner sweeter than the air breathings through the 



242 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

^olian harp. The brawny-muscled, broad-brained horses were the 
Norman bloods, strong and docile for the farm, and they were 
reared and grazed at " Melrose ". It is not to be forgotten that he 
would not take up the refrain of the theoretical, bookish free trad- 
ers, and be a leader of the Iowa farmers in rebellion against the 
American system. 

W. F. STORY, EDITOR. 

The founder of the Chicago Times, who built up what was at 
once an organ and a power with the masses, was Wilbur F. Story. 
Nothing more truly illustrates the mutations of the times than his 
career. 

He was a born journalist, with so keen a scent for news, and a 
talent for gaining notoriety, that great wealth came, and the double 
coveted honor of one both feared and quoted. In the war, a verg- 
ing toward treason caused a temporary suppression of his sheet, 
which gained him notoriety and facility to feed a public morbid 
api^etite for pictures of persons it was safe to scandalize. Essen- 
tially bad, a life's ambition was attained — to found a great house 
and a paper reaching a million of people and worth as many 
dollars. His financial and social troubles, and the lapse into for- 
getfulness, which is the doom of sordid expediency, are well known. 

Mr. Story began life near my Vermont home, in the shadow of 
Middlebury college. He was clear in perception, wide-read, and 
audacious and malignant in attack ; but with some redeeming qual- 
iteis which on cultivation would have saved his name from early 
forgetfulness. 

In 1872 we were standing on our platform to elect Horace 
Greeley president. By Story's secretary I was invited to call. 
"Sit down," said he, " and let me tell you how many years I have 
lampooned you and the radicals. My point is gained, and no more 
will The Times say how bad you are. Its columns are open to 
you." And so I learned a lesson of charity. 

EDGAR W. NYE. 

"Bill Nye, who was he?" asked a citizen. "You must have 
met him." My answer was, I have, and was introduced to him on 
the train as the young man who received the advice to ••Cj 



BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 243 

West". We had a pleasant cliat of a few hours, and the next I 
knew of his writing was a humorous chapter on "Men I have 
saw". The picture of myself was so ludicrous as to forbid anger 
or resentment at his sarcasm relative to my efforts for constitu- 
tional prohibition, also the impossibility of adjusting my voice to 
the accoustic demands of Church and salary in New York City; 
but this personal mention was trivial compared to the mirthful 
suggestions in regard to others in the same chapter. Bill Nye is a 
man about fifty, not the spectacled, cadaverous old man his artist 
represents him to be in wood-cuts. He is genial as a story-teller, 
hearty in laughter, terse in reply, whose scintillations of wit seem 
like the sparks from a highly-charged electrical battery. He 
touches follies and facts with the hand of a master. He asked 
me if I had ever met Doctor Mary Walker, and, to my surprise, 
the facts I gave appeared in his article, seasoned with his humor. 
She wore a gentleman's suit, flourishing a cane, with hair shin- 
gled, and was a frequent visitor in the Washington departments, 
where she was an applicant for an office, contrary to the presump- 
tion that she enjoyed a lucrative medical practice. Her role 
seemed to be rating man for his assumptions, and venting her com- 
plaint against her Maker because she was a woman. 



JOSEPH COOK. 

Joseph Cook appeared in Nye's same article, with an illustra- 
tion. He was in the attitude of holding an oil-can, apparently 
lubricating the planets in their revolutions, explanatory of his 
directing and moulding the theological thought of the age. But 
I disclaim any responsibility for the picture. Dogmatic as Mr. 
Cook is, like other great men, he is a great reader and deep 
thinker. Depreciatory letters having been sent abroad in regard 
to his waning influence, it will not be egotism for me to mention 
that I was invited to speak with him at the lecture hour in the 
great Tremont Temple. While the windows were crowded and 
aisles thronged, I could but say, repelling his enemies, that I 
thought the volumes evoked and the audiences gathered had made 
the indelible mark of a great American thinker. This is not say- 
ing that all great reformers and thinkers are lovely, above compar- 
ison and without fault, in contending for the faith. 



244 REMINISCENCES OF FOliTY YEARS. 

JOHN B. GOUGH. 

John B. Gough I cannot omit. I first heard him in the begin- 
ning of his career as a temperance orator. It was a magnificent 
outpouring of genuine eloquence from the heart — from the depths 
of his wretched experience ; and all his native and cultivated stage 
arts were then unconscious accessories to the impassioned effort. 
In private, too, he was simple and hearty, with none of the man- 
of-the-world manner he acquired after he had been feted abroad 
and at home. Those who heard him only in his later years, when 
his frequent repetitions on the lecture-platform had given an evi- 
dently mechanical character to his finest outbursts and best stories, 
could form no idea of the overpowering impression made by his 
earlier addresses. 

ROBERT G. INGERSOLL. 

In a congressional chapter preceding, it was mentioned that I 
surprised Eben C. Ingersoll by resigning in his favor, and that he 
was placed high on the committee on territories, which was much 
sought after at that period of organization and lucrative appoint- 
ments. This not only brightened the future of Mr. Ingersoll, but 
his brother the orator, apprised of his good fortune by the resigna- 
tion, wrote the already quoted letter, incipient to a long and pleas- 
ant acquaintance. He never forgot this little act on behalf of his 
brother, at whose grave there fell words softening the sharp asper- 
ities of critics. I was made welcome to his ranch in the moun- 
tains of New Mexico, and could not prevail on him to accept a legal 
fee in the matter of counsel to me as railway receiver. His failure 
to accept a personal invitation to speak in Grinnell is explained by 
his remark tliat as "the audience room was a church, he might 
wound the brethren ". 

It is too late now to assume that the renowned skeptic is a 
common man, or that the thousands who have essayed answers to 
his philippics have succeeded fully, when bishops, publicists, and 
even Gladstone step into the arena of debate. What, then, is the 
secret of his attraction ? He is an agnostic — an abnormal product 
by the repulsions of systems of theology couched in terms now in 
disuse. But is he an infidel with the bridges destroyed behind 
him, when he can say, "In the dark night of death hope sees a 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 245 

star, and listening love may catch the rustle of a wing" ? Is it not 
possible that, on a sober recast of opinion, he might be a pulpit 
successor of Beecher, to whom he is allied in transcendant gifts ? 

But what are the hidings of his power? He talks with his 
fingers, begets mirth with the twinkle of his eye, winning in pan- 
tomimic facial expression and forcing conviction with the swaying 
of arms and gesture on the platform, and all with the mobility of a 
rotund, rollicking gentleman, schooled in cadence and the devices 
of speech. His voice is of great compass and thrills with emotion, 
laden with fresh and startling conception and sublime imagery, 
bringing into service flowers, the air, earth's wonders, the stars, 
man and the gods. Judges and jurors are entertained by a wit 
and a pleader, with the resources of the severest student of books 
and men. Has his fervid rhetoric in the nomination of Blaine 
ever been equaled? Did the surviving patriots of our war ever 
listen to such an address as that before the Grand Army of the 
Eepublic at Indianapolis ? It hangs in golden letters in my parlor 
to remind of genius, pathos and matchless oratory. 

The ''one hundred" tributes to the lamented Beecher are before 
me in a volume. All the honored professions from many lands 
bring their myrtle wreaths, yet there is but one full, felicitous 
delineation, and warmth of eulogy — -a smiting of the rock for 
freshness — a successful draft on genius to illumine the career of 
his friend. In the sorceries of a casuist, and power in irreverent 
declamation where he stands without a peer, I hope he may have 
no rival in the ranks of men now living, and mine is a fervent 
prayer that he may be no more clouded with doubt, nor be occu- 
pied in cavil, but prove that the highest and holiest mission of an 
orator and the sublimest service of genius is to lead, in a world of 
darkness and doubt, following in the footsteps of the God-man. 

The author, on the delivery of his New Haven, Vermont, ora- 
tion, mentioned the father of Mr. Ingersoll studying theology 
there, saying, "The son was one who by the latest advices did 
not gain and does charge his theology to tradition." Thereon is 
founded the occasion of the following correspondence : 

New York, March 15, 1887. 
My dear Mr. Grinnell: 

With great pleasure I read your oration, and it took me back amid the dead 
years. I have lieard my fatlier speak of Dr. Hopkins a thousand times. Wliat a 
dreary life it must have been in Vermont some seventy-five years ago with the 



246 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

snow several feet deep, the mercury down in the bulb, and nothing of a cheerful 
nature except the theology of Hopkins. 

Nothing gives me so much pleasure as to watch the decay of the old, cruel and 
malignant creeds. What the preachers do not say is what pleases me. They are 
ashamed of the doctrine — ashamed to tell the "tidings of great joy". In other 
words, they are getting a little sense. 

Now, I want you some day when you are aUleisure to think this business over, 
and if you will think, you will see how sad and terrible the religion called evangel- 
ical is. 

I hope to see you converted — hope to see you a free man with the dust brushed 
off your knees. 

Thanking you for the oration, I remain yours always, 

E.. G. Ingersoll. 

Normal, Illinois, February 4, 1888. 
My dear Mr. Ingersoll: 

I have just returned from a winter visit to the city of Mexico and California 
and find your welcome letter. My Vermont oration did not require an acknowl- 
edgement if it did mention your reverend father and yourself. Dr. Hopkins, whom 
you say your " father spoke of a thousand times ", was a character in that day, and 
it is a pleasant reflection that my ancestors enjoyed his friendship, and that he 
moulded a community of rare qualities, yoii would say save as to their theology. 

I hear a fresh story which reminds that there was good orthodox perception in 
the father you mention as a student. I judge he did not bite his thumb in the 
morning to find whether he was "in the me or the not-me world". Like his son 
he was a revivalist, but of another order. At the conclusion of the sermon a com- 
pany of young ladies engaged him in personal conversation. The frivolity of one 
with a decollete dress even below the fashion, caused the advice that "if she 
wished to become a Christian, she had best go home and cover up ". I regarded it 
as more than a legend — a fact which does credit to the family. 

It is said that the speculations and doubts of the author of "The Gods" 
as to the Holy Land and its Christ, expressed in the campany of General Lew Wal- 
lace, led to the volume " Ben Hur ", insuring to the author competence, and to his 
readers delight and confirmation of our sacred history. If this be truth, I might 
quote a maxim, if not in fear that it might be offensive. As it is, a thousand times 
publicly expressing my admiration for the boldest rhetorical figures, and eloquence 
in every nerve and intonation, I frankly say that without so noble a purpose, you 
have, by impetuosity in attack, given an example which has hushed the rattle of 
the dry bones in the pulpit and sent swift, healthful life-currents down the chan- 
nels of modern thought. Bad as you are painted, and in error as I think you, 
there may be time to correct the sheet being kept, and to be balanced on the entry 
book, " Cr. — A recast of opinions in orthodox orations by Robert G. Ingersoll." 
Now as to your advice that I should "brush the dust from my knees". It sug- 
gests on my part supererogation, which might possibly be in the line of virtues to 
be modestly cultivated in the porch of the theological temple which you invite me 
to enter for reflection. 

Then you " hope to see me a free man " and " converted ", etc. I am insensi- 
ble to bondage. For many years I have been an unofficial character; any doctrine 
I have proclaimed has been one unpaid for ; perhaps its saving quality was that it 
was cheap. 

To what shall I be converted, being now a Protestant of the liberal school? 
You are a theological doubter, a charged battery of negatives, silent when I ask 
for your chui-ch, and about the crossing of tlie " melancholy flood " with a better 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 247 

ferryman than mine, and without a friend in the God-man, who has so long buoyed 
up so many of the sad with the jjromise of a royal welcome. If this is a delusion, 
so let it remain. I confide in the Man of men ; the voluntary sacrifice of the Son 
of the highest. Never shall I escape the bias, nor the guilt of my ancestor on 
trial and free, Avho fell. 

With my ancestors He was persecuted in France — the Huguenots poor and in 
exile. To many generations He l*as been a high model and a solace in death. 
Now in the strifes for mastery over evil I am as conscious of His presence as I am 
of my existence. So, while regarding theology as a science, I join you in delight 
on the abandonment of dogmatism and pharasaic cant, but any system which 
denies the need of a mediator, and one that came with the zeal of a martyr and the 
love of a God to fight the great plenipotentiary battle for the race, is opposed to 
early and most sacred trust, and does not commend itself to my judgment in 
advanced years. Religion, its own evidence, I find not alone in theologies and 
books, but in the heroism of the high, and rich experiences of the humble and 
poor. 

And now, my dear Ingersoll, even in humble station and not hovering in 
doubt, I express the conviction that my unalloyed confiding trust in the great fun- 
damental truths of the Christian religion and Christ as exemplar, brings me in a 
single hour of refiection gi-eater joy than all the speculations in which you can 
indulge and the breath which comes in the applause of those waiting on your lips 
of genius. Hence you will pardon the hope that my joys may be yours, ecstacies 
possible to one with gifts and opportunities to change the cm-rents of thought of 
millions; and oh, what service you can render to Him (whether only man, martyr 
or the missionary of a Creator) and to a world demanding an example which has 
brought much of blessing and waits to fill this and all worlds with the beatitudes 
of a living Saviour. 

Yours truly, 

J. B. Grinnell. 



CHAPTEE XVI. 

loiva and lowans — Col. S. H. M. Bijers, our war historian — 
Charles Aldrich — D. N. Richardson — Hon. Ezekiel Clark — 
John L. Coffin — Generals James B. Weaver, N. B. Baker, John 
M. Corse, Samuel R. Curtis, G. M. Dodge, J. M. Crocker and 
William, W. Belknap — Governors Grimes, Kirkwood, Stone, 
Merrill, Carpenter, Gear, Sherman and Larrabee — Judges 
Wright, Nourse, Miller, Dillon, Love and McCrary — Hons. 
Graves, Moninger, Hoivell and McDill — Henry Clay Dean. 

Iowa has no state historian, as yet. It is not because she had 
no writers of ability. But, she is a proud maker of history, if not 
prolific in book-makers. No state, in a half century of progress, 
has made equal national advances. None has a more honored 
civil and military record, worthy to beckon millions to her prairies. 
Governor Grimes well named her "the fair and only free child of 
the Missouri Compromise ". Bounded on the east and west by two 
great rivers — "The Father and Mother of Waters" — she has been 
called the Mesopotamia of the West. Excluding the northern 
third of Maine, a wilderness, her area equals that of New England ; 
and her free principles, intelligence and high moral and religious 
tone, have made her knoAvn as the New England, and the Massa- 
chusetts more especially, of the states of the great valley. 

We have no historian, and can wait his appearing until at least 
nine tenths of our virgin acres have burnished the plowshare. Let 
him bide his time until our valleys are musical with the sound of 
mechanism, and our homes become beautiful in the glow of refined 
civilization. Let him celebrate the courage of pioneers, who 
brought to our commonwealth select affinities, free schools and a 
high social and literary rank. Defer biography and statues of 
benefactors until the issue of a war against the shameless social 
enemies, whose cohorts and leaders are in ambush. This delay 
may not obscure the grandest agricultural achievements, and nei- 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 249 

ther silence nor time will avail to dim the recorded deeds of men, 
to pass into material for historic pages. 

It was an opinion of Webster, and to the credit of New Hamp- 
shire, that if the state was poor in soil and cereals, she was rich in 
the product of men. Where is the limit of praise, then, to a 
double production of comely herd and cultured owner, on farms 
hospitable to skill, to domestic bloods and to factory? Figures 
often bewilder, while comparisons with the well known are a good 
basis of opinion. 

What are some of the facts which are the boast of our rural 
people ? Iowa with its annual average production of two hundred 
millions of bushels of corn; surpassing any state as the basis of 
meat — pork and beef — for this and foreign countries — a sum 
total of two millions of bovines, embracing more beef-animals and 
butter-creameries than any state — millions of swine in excess of 
her rivals, reared with profit under natural farming conditions, 
and shipped to many countries, facilitating exchanges and helping 
a fine trade balance. Yielding the palm to newer states in wheat 
growing, Iowa is only second in the product of oats and flax, and 
is coming to the first rank in amount of native and cultivated 
grasses for home use and export, broadening the farms and attract- 
ing an industrious and moral people to a home on the remaining 
ten millions of acres, rich in soil and fine in topography, yet 
untouched by a plow. Nature has given bracing air and ample 
drainage, to exempt from malaria in a great degree, and give vital- 
ity and health to the electric, courageous spirits from many states 
and lands. Groves of trees which rise to beauty, for protection 
and fuel, are readily grown in a decade. Coal, discovered in 
purity and fabulous quantities, has dispelled all doubts as to want 
of fuel for home, and for steam manufactory and locomotive 
demands. 

In railway mileage Iowa is third in the Union, having eight 
thousand miles, reaching every one of the ninety-nine counties, 
with a station but a few miles from every farm. Five trunk lines 
across the state attract the bulk of the interoceanic trade of the 
country, added to which is the distribution of fruits and products 
indigenous to other countries, by a net- work of steel tracks joined 
to the great arteries, now harmonious and by increasing comity 
giving promise of celerity, cheapness and safety to the patrons, 
and reward to capital and enterprise. 



250 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

NO FAILURES. 

I have seen but one failure in a conspicuous Iowa project. It 
was the damming of the Des Moines river for slack water naviga- 
tion, and indirectly furnishing hydraulic power. As stated in the 
sarcasm of the governor's message to a third House, six dams were 
built and only fifty remained to be constructed. The power is now 
partially utilized by private capital, while a commercial waterway 
as a national device is abandoned, after great expenditures of time 
and money. Even this was more of an engineering, governmental, 
political scheme than a policy of the people. There were many 
incidents contributing to failure, but the chief was a rival in the 
railway system — an all-the-year-round servant in place of boats 
subject to the vicissitudes of ice and drouth. A basis of value was 
made on the transportation of grass products to the great river, to 
be floated to the Gulf for the feeding of hungry nations by the ser- 
vice of ships. Then came the policy of condensing grain values into 
animals, and the establishing of home industries, promoting easy 
exchanges and making home commerce more profitable than for- 
eign trade. <' Wait for the wagon." No, that was in song, nor can 
we wait on slack water from Keokuk up for two hundred miles to 
the Raccoon Forks. This was a resolve never more to be reconsid- 
ered, in an age of steel and steam, pushing on the flyer and can- 
non-ball trains fleet as the wind. It is a cheering fact that, with- 
out scandal against ofiicials and the abandonment of the " feeding of 
the world theory " (a favorite theme of middle men and ship own- 
ers), a more promising field for skill and enterprise was opened. 
Wool growers temporarily went to the rear, but other animal 
industries came to the foreground of every rural district, where cli- 
mate and soil and the skill of the owners give assurance of that 
proud supremacy to which Iowa has attained. 

Is the state well worthy of higher honors ? Her institutions 
are her crown jewels, reformatory, educational, humane and chari- 
table". They rose in our Civil War amidst the anathemas of not 
all loyal tax-payers, hushed now in non-partisan support, and a 
pride becoming to honored citizens. To name each — from a 
capitol unrivaled in the West for splendor, with the less preten- 
tious edifices, down to the last — a completed soldier's home in 
order of beneficence — to name each would include an array of 
institutions of just state pride in making liberal appropriations. 



REMINISCENCES OF FOBTY YEARS. 251 

The product, in all matters material and aesthetic, reflects the 
brain and hand of the maker. By this aphorism, we place the fair- 
est product earth holds up to its Maker — man, the conservator and 
builder, on a pedestal, in tribute to personal devotion and leader- 
shiji in whatever things are in the realm of citizenship " lovely and 
of good report ". 

All before 1854 as hearsay I leave, seeking headlands in per- 
sonality of which I can safely speak. Of the veteran ''Father 
Clarkson ", who properly belongs in this chapter, 1 have already 
spoken, as well as of senators Wilson and Allison, and others, as 
the narrative brought them into mention. 

THE WAR HISTOKIAN. 

Col. S. H. M. Byers, with scholastic culture, the genius of a 
poet and the fervor of a young patriot, found himself enlisting in 
the Fifth Iowa regiment, and finally captured as a prisoner, being 
one of sixteen out of sixty spared to tell the story. His volume 
On the late war bears the marks of an historian, and does honor to 
our soldiery in depicting the battles in which they were engaged, 
while giving due credit to the citizens who sustained them. It is 
illustrated with taste, abundant in details, and evincing versatility 
and elegance in description. Our public men in the war era are 
eulogized, and the conspicuous characters in regimental history are 
noted with accuracy. An elegant book of six hundred pages, 
printed in Des Moines, commends the author and his product to 
every loyal citizen, to make no mention of the wider fame acquired 
by his poem, ''Sherman's March to the Sea". Colonel Byers 
reflected honor on his appointment to a consulship in Switzerland, 
and his subsequent service as consul-general at Rome. Our college 
is especially indebted to him for an expensive set of Swiss school 
apparatus, illustrating science and industries by charts and 
specimens. 

HONORABLE CHARLES ALDRICH, 

Honorable Charles Aldrich, of Webster City, is placing our peo- 
ple under increasing and lasting obligation. He had rank in our 
late army as an officer, high repute as an editor, and became one 
of our state legislators. By correspondence, foreign travel and 



252 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

extensive acquaintance with authors, he has for years been an 
enthusiastic collector of autographs, manuscripts and pictures of 
historical characters, which form a rare cabinet, which he placed 
at the disposal of the state, without reference to reimbursement. 
The Iowa state capitol, wanting in costly pictures and marble 
busts, has thus a unique and attractive collection in the useful trib- 
ute of citizen Aldrich to the name and fame of our most noted 
citizens and the great actors for centuries. Thousands of visitors 
make mention of this collection, and Governor Larrabee, retiring 
from the chair of state, suggested money testimonial to the author, 
which has been appropriated, though in no sense a reward for 
years of unselfish acquisition of the treasures now made the prop- 
erty and instructive entertainment of the public. Thus has taste, 
liberality and devotion to the state made a name enshrined in mem- 
ory while the commonwealth has a beautiful capitol. In the same 
generous spirit, Mr. Aldrich's charming pen has many times been 
employed in making known to the people, by contributions to our 
newspapers, the claims of institutions, men and measures, too 
little appreciated. He is the eloquent friend of all merit and 
refining enterprise. 

OTHER NOTABLES. 

D. N". Hichardson, of Davenport, a native of Vermont, cultiva- 
ting rural tastes as a gentleman cattle farmer, developed genius in 
amassing a competence while a democratic editor and newspaper 
publisher in a republican state. Well has he answered the ques- 
tion, "Where is the literature on Iowa soil?" A cultivated taste 
seen in original felicitous description as a journalist, inspired a 
world-round trip, with timely accessories of cash, leisure and com- 
pany. After his return the Chicago press brought out a volume 
that is innocent of platitudes. It is a new, fresh vein of story- 
telling, description and adventure. The volume has hung before 
me pictures drawn by a master, in a story of peoples and lands 
the million may not visit, but may see through another's eye in a 
pleasing illusion that they are there. 

Hon. Ezekiel Clark, of Iowa City, was an early settler, an able 
state senator, an esteemed worker in our state politics, and a 
trusted citizen. He was the first employed to purchase clothing 
for our soldiery. His enterprise was not limited to his farm, to 



RE3{INISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 253 

bank, mill, railway extension or coal mining. Cool in action, 
sagacious in advice, he can never pass out of memoiy for a great 
heart, beating effectively in time of calamity for the unfortunate. 
To meet the wants of the suffering in the great Grinnell tornado 
of 1882, he left his home to minister personally to strangers, 
besides giving the first check for five hundred dollars, mentioned 
elsewhere, not only to restore the desolation, but to remind how 
imperative are the obligations which rest on prosperous citizens. 
Truly the note of liberality was struck high, and vibrating 
responses brought prompt and large benefactions which have few 
parallels in the annals of relief afforded to the poor and houseless 
wasted by storm. 

John L. Coffin, of Fort Dodge, with a kindly heart, and noble 
ambition to step out of rather than . into the political procession, 
has won more than my respect. A railroad commissioner by 
appointment, he was at a post of observation which he well 
improved. Officially, he dared make a plea for rest due to railway 
employees on Sunday. It was a John the Baptist cry in the wil- 
derness, where capital, greed and official stolidity dominated and 
slept. The echoes of his argument will be loud and potent in sec- 
onding the great-hearted William E. Dodge, and those who are 
friends of laborers, in demanding for them rest on Sunday, and 
honor to Him who commanded amidst the thunderings of Sinai. 
Safety for brakemen on cars is also the desire of Mr. Coffin, 
enforced by appeal to humanity and law. No mere moral knight- 
errant is he, but a warm-hearted pleader for humane improvements, 
which will insure immunity from maiming for the men, added to 
the birthright of rest for toilers. Mr. Coffin is under seventy 
years, has courage, competence, and a great cause to impel his 
fame far into the future. 

Gen. James B. Weaver's arrival for a speech in our town was 
somewhat suggestive of circus day. What of Ex-Congressman 
Weaver ? Pictures on the bill-boards, large and artistic, and well 
tinted, have invited the people to come and hear their servant's 
execrations of monopolies, and behold a spectacle of rivals laid 
low, even biting political dust. Up to the Waterloo defeat of 
1888, opera houses were too narrow for his admiring crowds, and 
the curious opposers relished extravagant assertion, illustrated 
with story and eloquent periods. Never dull in mimicry, vivacious 
even in wordy platitudes, he had captured a district. General 



254 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

Weaver was short a few votes, and charged a betrayal in the nom- 
ination for governor by republicans. Never daunted, a soldier, 
temperance advocate, an incessant laborer with an instrument 
never dulled by use, only by age, it was easy to champion the peo- 
ple vs. banks, and the like. A wit of celebrity, asked if he finished 
three bottles of port without assistance, replied, " I had the assist- 
ance of a bottle of Madeira." The general in like manner could 
answer, "I had, besides favorite allies^- my bottles of port — the 
assistance of a bottle of Madeira — the democrats." 

GENERAL BAKER. 

Iowa citizens in a further mention will include some of our 
generals — among them Adjutant-General N. B. Baker. He came 
to Iowa, after having been elected speaker of the House of Eepre- 
sentatives and governor of New Hampshire. Here he Avas a mem- 
ber of the Avar legislature, first in loyalty as a Douglas democrat, 
and, with able executive gifts, was called to the j)ost of organizer 
of war troops, to earn a Avarm place as an officer, prompt, generous 
and sagacious reader of men. His official life was a model of ser- 
vice, untiring up to his sad demise. For him the state mourned — 
a genius in execution, a leader of patriot hearts in our darkest 
hours. 

Major-General John M. Corse, now postmaster of Boston, is a 
conspicuous human loAva product, the son of a reputable book pub- 
lisher of Burlington. Beginning his military career as major, he 
'rose to the honor of a general's command of a division, only by 
such aids as gallantry could reinforce in a soldier of resource and 
the dash of a born leader. To the rear he never Avent, but Avas 
borne from the field Avith Avounds supposed to be mortal. I take 
pleasure in private chats in his Boston office, Avhere order reigns, 
showing that progress in methods for the public weal Avhich distin- 
guished this civilian. His war despatches had not a Pope flavor, 
but exhibited such qualities that, if the war had been j)iolonged, 
his dash, Avhich had attracted his superiors, Avould have made him 
even a more conspicuous hero among veteran heroes. In Boston 
he has a Avelcome in society Avhere the family of Ex-President 
Pierce, with Avhom he is in alliance by marriage, Avere favorites. 

Gen. J. M. Tuttle, leaving the boat at Keokuk as a survivor of 
Port Donelson, I had the honor of aiding to the cars, everywhere 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 255 

welcomed a hero. To the head of the G. A. R. in Iowa, he rose as 
a fighting rather than a boisterous patriot. 

MAJOR-GENERAL SAMUEL R. CURTIS. 

He furnishes a fitting head-line to emblazon loM'-a by her sons 
in the late civil war. Educated at West Point, serving in Iowa as 
a civil engineer, and evincing a public spirit to Avin respect, even 
admiration, he became twice a representative of one half the state 
in Congress. 

By nature of a heavy moiild, conservative by association, it Avas 
not easy in the political canvass for him to anticipate the crisis of 
rebellion, even as late as 1860. The gun at Fort Sumter startled 
him, and, while holding high rank as a legislator, he resigned for 
the field, leaving the championship of the Union Pacific Railroad 
to others, who had less zeal and engineering knowledge. He had 
served in Mexico, being colonel of an Ohio regiment in 1847. He 
was chosen colonel of the Second Iowa Infantry, and earliest in 
the field winning the first star accorded to an Iowa officer, achiev- 
ing at the battle of Pea Ridge like distinction. This battle was a 
memorable occasion to test the skill of our officers, and in proof 
that there was iron in the blood of our soldiers. 

At St. Louis he was given command in a day of spies, more to 
be dreaded than open foes. The frontier Avas his home, and the 
department of Kansas gave him at Fort Leavenworth the rest he 
needed, still hoping for a part in the colossal schemes of internal 
improvements of the West. Early his career Avas ended, poor in 
purse, but rich in honors Avell Avon. Time Avill not dim his mem- 
ory in my mind who knew him a guest, friend, and a man of emi- 
nent public spirit. It is a Avide opinion that he died poor, yet the 
family have, like his state, a goodly heritage in a patriot's career. 

MAJOR-GENERAL G. M. DODGE. 

There is a peculiarly appreciative and able sketch of this gen- 
tleman by Colonel Byers in that standard volume, "loAva in War 
Times "'. It is an artistic outline picture, but not too brilliant for 
the deeds Avhich emblazon the man. I kncAV him thirty-five years 
before he was a general, railway magnate, builder and capitalist. 
He was ^ proteije of Henry Farnam, the builder of our Rock Island 



256 BEMINISCENCES OF FOETY YEARS. 

road, he, or his brother, N. P. Dodge, having the honor of setting 
the red flag as a surveyor on the summit line, a stone's throw from 
our window Avhere I write. To give the incidents and name the 
steps upward in his career would be a long, often-told and adven- 
turous story. The boy must have been restless, if "the child is 
father of the man". He was at the Vermont Military School, the 
nurse of patriots unlike the Confederate brood of full-grown West 
Pointers, only nurtured to sting the old mother who had fed and 
clothed them. The war found plain Mr. Dodge the animating 
spirit in making a city of Council Bluffs, and the soul of honor 
joined to wisdom which made him the counsellor of capitalists and 
the confidant of learned engineers. The organization of the Fourth 
Infantry which he led as colonel, was not earlier in time than 
effective in service, choosing a martial band in our little city of 
Grinnell, which he as commander would have, if maintained from 
his not then over-pletheric purse. Did he save the battle of Pea 
Eidge ? That is the' military verdict. Was he the greatest adept 
of the time in destroying the railroads of the enemy, and building 
our own lines and bridges ? This is accorded by even jealous West 
Point rivals. Did the first wound retire him from the field, the 
second blanch his courage as well as his face, or the third, maiming 
for life, dampen his ardor ? Never. And it was this with a thou- 
sand minor achievements which earned the compliments of General 
Sherman without reserve, and inspired the confidence of Grant, 
who urged in vain the removal of General Rosecrans and the sub- 
stitution of Dodge. On Grant's choice General Dodge could have 
been at the head of the war department, but ill health and busi- 
ness forbade the sacrifice. 

In 1864 we find the soldier of Iowa nominated for Congress 
over a most gifted civilian, and elected amidst a chorus of shout- 
ing. He declined a second election, and I think this was his first 
and last ofiice held in the civil list. Why ? I heard him mention 
the duties of errand boy in Washington with only less disgust than 
his weariness in listening to political platitudes. He had enough 
of battles, but could with pleasure gaze on his pictured Avails, with 
such paintings as " Johnnie coming marching home ", in a gallery 
and art collection which his wife freely loaned in aid of charity 
and for the culture of citizens at his home. 

Facile locomotion and development of the country by railways 
has been an engrossing labor and ruling passion. For years he 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 257 

has been a director of the great Union Pacific Eailway system, and 
one of its ablest counsellors. He is credited with projection and 
control of great southern and western lines, like that from Denver 
south, interstate and international in relation. With our greatest 
capitalists he dines and counsels, and that he pauses to aid our 
Iowa College by a thousand-dollar gift confirms my regard for him 
as a friend. 

GEN. J. M. CROCKER. 

General Crocker, of Des Moines, I knew as having the glamour 
of a story-teller and the adroitness of a criminal circuit lawyer. 
He was a West Point graduate, and events indicated that he had 
found his place in leading and inspiring our soldiers. He was the 
choice of our great captain for the command which embraced the 
Crocker brigade. Though reared a democrat, there was no ques- 
tion that he was for the war without an if, or reserve. A lung 
malady developed after brilliant service, and he returned to Des 
Moines on a furlough. His nature forbade rest, and a suggestion 
was made that he could be nominated for governor in the repub- 
lican convention by acclamation. To all this he was deaf. " I am 
in for the field at the earliest day, and nothing can tempt me into 
politics while the war is on." 

How deafening the Cheers as he quietly entered the convention, 
pale, and with feeble lung power tested when called on for a 
speech. It was courageous in tone and adroit as patriotic. " Do I 
look in the eyes of a fire-in-the-rear democrat ? God forbid ! they 
are more dangerous than rebels in front. I am not fighting to save 
slavery and democracy. One is about dead, and — well you know 
how our old party can be damned. Pill up the ranks. Belch out 
the shot and shell, Avhich the masked incarnate devils must have. 
Read Douglas' immortal farewell, you democrats, and if you must 
take a glass — I have to indulge a little for throat trouble [great 
cheers] — drink to the health of Grant, an old democrat, now the 
patriot's pride, organizing victory." With a twinkle of the eye he 
said, " I cannot tell a story, but in a poetical line I can give the 
epitaph of democrats weak in back and black at heart. Down in 
Keokuk county a widow had no earthly possessions but a pet pig. 
It died, and the emotional lady had the animal buried, and I, a 
youngster, gave the epitaph. I can in my manhood give it for every 



258 REMINISCENCES OF FOUTY YEARS. 

halting sick patriot, and for democracy, if it leaves its colors in 
1863. This for the pig : 



' While I lived I lived in clover, 
Wlien I died I died all over." 



It is long since we bade farewell to the hero seeking health, as 
an official in New Mexico, and ending his life in Washington, in 
1865. 

MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM W. BELKNAP. 

well earned his rank, and by an army address of high tone and 
eloquence captivated President Grant, who made him Secretary 
of War. That he was under a temporary cloud by the acts of 
another, nameless, does not debar my tribute to an officer who 
served his country with a devotion that reflected the highest 
honor on his state, which took pride in his service and rising for- 
tunes at the national capitol. In the autumn of 1890 he was 
called hence. 

GOVERNORS. 

Iowa has seven living ex-governors, all of whom it has been my 
privilege to know, aiid to receive at their hands official compli- 
ments. To be blind to their foibles was a study, an occasion for 
sharp criticisn not having arisen. I can hope that the time for 
mortuary praise is far in the future. Hon. Ralph P. Lowe, of 
Keokuk, the deceased chief justice, had a personality to endure 
every test that could be applied, and the firm, triumphant faith of 
a patriot and a Christian. 

GOV. JAMES W. GRIMES. 

Deceased in 1872, he was a half century ago territorial legisla- 
tor. Then he, governor for two terms, and twice elected United 
States senator, resigned to escape from duties which it was feared 
would bring on a disease premonitory of certain death. His mental 
and social endowments and characteristics I have mentioned in the 
chapter on reconstruction, and only add that in public service he 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 259 

was conspicuous for tact and power in a minority ; for political 
combinations which made him governor, after the most earnest and 
eloquent state canvass in our annals ; a free school law for this state 
found in him a friend, while the state and sovereignty which would 
allow the assassins of liberty to cross our territory to enslave 
Kansas found in him an enemy. The navy became not a hobby, 
but engaged his deep interest as a patriot ; while during the war 
era at the head of the senate committee, he became the counsellor 
and confidant of admirals. He, with personal grief, voted against 
the majority of his party on the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, 
which act illustrated his forecast and independence as a statesman. 
Mr. Grimes sprang early into favor with agriculturists as a 
writer, and was a large land owner of soil, rich in contrast with 
that of his native New Hampshire. He first came on the emigra- 
tion wave to the city of Burlington, where he now lies buried. By 
sagacious investment he attained large wealth. He left a tract of 
land to Iowa College, and a library to his city, but his greatest 
legacies were his life and character, described in Dr. Salter's 
memoir, and which will enrich Iowa's history when a volume 
worthy of its men is written. 

GOV. SAMUEL J. KIKKWOOD, 

State and United States senator, and twice governor, was cabinet 
officer under the lamented Garfield, on whose death he retired to 
private life in Iowa City, now nearing seventy-six years. Radicals 
have ever been hospitable to "born democrats", and the "plough 
handle" candidate was one; and he was fortunate and strong in 
free soil allegiance as to time, and the strong and vigilant support 
of Ex-Senator Ezekiel Clark, his relative and business partner, 
with the will and skill of a political genius. Mr. Kirkwood was 
never a favorite in the religious circles, though indicting the most 
religious, orthodox messages, nor with the clans that were tolerant 
of the saloon in the state or nation. Of a kindly heart, he was not 
wanting on occasion in combative force. A war governor had 
opportunities, and Kirkwood well improved them, and later kept 
in sympathy with the agricultural masses, before whom for years 
he has been a plain but favorite speaker in championship of econ- 
omy, higher education and the policy of a tariff. With a tempera- 
ment seeking ease rather than the theatre of adventure, or the 



260 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

mingling in political strifes, he will be held in esteem for sturdy 
honesty as an official, and a calm, clear perception of duty, not less 
than for eminent patriotic service as our state executive in perilous 
times when home traitors were in ambush, held by unseen links 
and oaths to the Knights of the Golden Circle, one of the most 
dangerous organizations of the century. 

GOV. WILLIAM M. STONE. 

Governor Stone was district judge in the war era, and 
resigned for the military service as major, until appointed colonel 
of the Twenty-second Iowa infantry. In charge of a brigade he 
was wounded in the arm, and when on a furlough was tempted into 
the political arena, seeking a nomination as the successor of Kirk- 
wood, and having rivals in the astute politician who was secretary 
of state, and the brilliant Fitz Henry Warren. After a most excit- 
ing struggle, in which Warren showed the greatest magnanimity, 
Colonel Stone was nominated. 

The cool home critics of one who left the field of danger for 
civic honors, came into line under the dashing canvass of one so 
effective in jeering copperheads and eloquent in appeal to patriots. 
The loyalty shown by the soldier vote was also in high compli- 
ment of a gentleman who as executive never forgot his army com- 
rades, and in private life has merited the favor of pensioners, his 
later acts supplementing his liberal policy as state executive. 
More of an orator than a financier, he has, under President Harri- 
son, won an appointment as first assistant officer in the national 
land department, where great cases will have a fair hearing by an 
intelligent and upright officer. 

GOV. SAMUEL MERRILL. 

Governor Merrill was a state representative and a merchant of 
McGregor, at the breaking out of the Civil War. Business was 
dropped cheerfully and he bade adieu to home on accepting the 
colonelcy of the Twenty-first Iowa, a regiment noted for gallantry 
alike with its commander. He was supposed to be mortally 
wounded at the battle of Black River Bridge, where he gained the 
warm praise of General Carr "as the first in battle and the last 
to leave the field ". From the rebel rain of lead and iron shot he 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 261 

never recovered, and passes a well-earned pension, it is said, over to 
the poor in the city Avhere he prospered and the capitol of a state 
delighting to do him honor. It is only an incident that I had a few 
hundred votes in the convention, but felicitate myself not only on 
making his nomination unanimous, but in loyalty to a business cit- 
izen and worthy official. 

In a broad view of our wants as a state, he laid the corner-stone 
of our new state capitol and was liberal in plans to encourage pub- 
lic improvements by the enlistment of capital. State institutions 
were especially befriended, and his gifts in advancing higher edu- 
cation were many and liberal, culminating in the endowment of 
a professorship in Iowa College ($20,000), of which institution he 
was a trustee. His success as a bank president and in railway enter- 
prises were in entire accord with his well known probity and 
forecast. Ill health in his family led to enforced removal to Cali- 
fornia, where his wife died. His enlistment in business schemes 
there, it is hoped, require only a temporary absence from a people 
only less profuse in honors than hearty in wish for his permanent 
abode on our soil. 

GOV. C. C. CARPENTER. 

As register of the state land office after the close of the war, 
Colonel Carpenter was a resident of Fort Dodge. It is not an 
assumption that because he had a morbid dislike of the smell of 
gunpowder, he became a commissary of subsistence. General 
Logan sought out the wide-awake officer of probity, to render ser- 
vice of more value in an emergency than that of a field marshal. 

In 1871 the repute of a wise legislator and faithful staff officer 
in the field, taken with the vocation of a farmer, not a trivial cir- 
cumstance in political slate construction, smoothed the road to a 
nomination to governorship in easy transition, and an election even 
more facile. 

We meet him as an officer and cattle superintendent at our 
state fairs, where, I have little doubt, the smell of the breath of 
our fancy bovines is more welcome than the fumes of alcohol and 
the jostle of political caucuses. One of the most forcible of our 
public speakers, rendering good service in Congress, he has by his 
address on "The Skeleton in the Corncrib", stimulated farmers to 
adopt high feeding to condense values, at the same time encourag- 



262 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

ing domestic exchanges in the line of our farmers' policy and road 
to wealth. 

GOV. JOHN H. GEAB. 

Honored as mayor of the city, a wholesale merchant and state 
legislator, rising to the speakership, Mr. Gear's election as gov- 
ernor broke the royal military line of governors. Fort Snelling 
was a military post on the Mississippi, where, as a sou of a post 
chaplain, he was born. He figured as a manufacturer, and served 
on the ways and means committee in Congress, but he has gone 
into retirement temporarily, with others, whose offense in support- 
ing the McKinley tariff bill is yet to be held as a high honor. 

GOV. BUREN B. SHERMAN. 

In ante bellum days, he was a county official, but left all to 
gradviate from the army with honorable life scars, earning promo- 
tion by the lead yet corroding in his person. He was often in the 
range of the fire of our foe. "He was shot nearly to pieces," says 
Byers, "at the battle of Shiloh." 

The repute of an able orator placed him at the head of a party, 
chastened by divisions incident to great majorities. Corporate 
bodies meant domination to be met, bringing the baptism of fire in 
another sense, when he found it true that "a man's foes shall be 
those of his own household ". 

The public needs of our unfortunate and dependent classes 
touched to move a sensitive nature. In the line of public service 
the governor became an open and brave advocate for the prohibi- 
tion amendment of 1882. His ear was never dull to entreaty, nor 
his purse closed to charity, and at the end of his term of office he 
was found poor in all save the priceless tributes to his fidelity, his 
eloquence as a debater, patriotic pride in his state, and love for our 
national defenders. 

GOV. WILLIAM J. LARRABEE, 

A native of Connecticut, of quiet tastes, a sagacious financier and 
of long legislative experience, might be expected to be conserva- 
tive. No predecessor was better equipped for a successful admin- 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 263 

istration, and to Governor Larrabee's credit stands a repute for 
the closest attention of a financier, and an unbending purpose to 
promote the public weal. The saloons will never forgive his proph- 
ecy that they can never again have legal toleration in Iowa. Exec- 
utive documents and official declarations in favor of upholding our 
prohibitory enactment, have sent out a swarm of peripatetic revil- 
ers, stimulated by the flask and assisted in the pouring out of vials 
of wrath by even the sordid employer across state lines. Whatever 
the issue, it will be found that the chair of state was filled with 
rare personality. 

Factions on the transportation question there were. They are 
not now in array for criticism ; the pipe of peace should be smoked. 
If the flames of strife were fanned by honest or by designing men, 
the former as lovers of comity were too seldom united, and a suc- 
cessor governor reaps where he had not sown. Dr. Johnson said, 
"Where you undertake to kill, let it be only your enemies." Scat- 
tering fire often sends the most fatal shots. Reproaches for this 
political result will be hushed, before the untarnished fame of a 
state with high credit and no debt, and with no scandals, even in a 
whisper, and with hearty encomiums for the fidelity and courage 
of the farmer governor. 

GEORGE G. WEIGHT, OF DES MOINES. 

Nearing seventy years. Judge Wright is yet young in spirit 
and abounding in railway service and local financiering, while 
maintaining the more congenial social amenities of a pioneer glee- 
ful story-teller, and emotional table orator. For the period of a 
generation in the circles of farmers, at the bar, at educational and 
political gatherings, he has found a welcome. For epigrammatic 
taste, exuberance of wit, strong Saxon, apt comparison and close 
logic, while devoid of limpid fluency, he is in just repute. His Bar 
address just delivered before the jurists in national convention at 
Saratoga, evinces learning and fine conception as a lawyer and 
statesman. Few have had like rare opportunities, as a pioneer 
counsellor, a judge, a chief justice, wearing the unspotted ermine 
long years until called to be United States senator, to take rank with 
a deceased brother, statesman and diplomat, Joseph Wright. As 
senatorial candidate, he had but to intimate, and troops of friends 
made his cause their care. The acceptance was by some deemed 



264 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

ill-timed in view of his adherence to a pledge to the American pol- 
icy learned in the school of Clay, but time has justified his educa- 
tional speeches and persistent voting for a protective tariff. 

OTHER LAWYERS. 

Judge C. C. Nourse and N. W. Hubbard are gentlemen of 
fame, not finding congenial duties at the bench but at the bar. In 
this forum there is found the play of exuberant fancy in wit, 
which, added to legal learning and oratorical gifts, have brought 
large fees and honorable successes. Judge Hubbard, before in the 
employ as solicitor of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway Co., 
gave one of the grandest philippics against the saloon on record; 
and Judge Nourse, often and by choice an anti-corporation lawyer, 
has been for a quarter of a century a standard prohibition orator 
with a national fame. Both gentlemen have written in a grace- 
ful, eulogistic style of our state and her people, on many occa- 
sions, and were often famous dinner speakers and orators for set 
occasions. I think the twain owe more to native than to cultivated 
resources. They are witty and wise, which is better than to be 
otherwise, for thereby has come employment and competence as sol- 
ace in life's evening. With Judge Nourse there is an anticipatory 
gleam before the explosive speech, but none the less spontaneous. 
Judge Hubbard lightens unexpectedly, without an intimation of 
the pun or merry puncture which brings the laugh in or out of 
order. 

OUR FEDERAL JUDGES. 

Our state is not of an age to boast of many jurists and ofiicials 
"to the manor born". Justice Samuel R. Miller, born in Ken- 
tucky, after thirty years' service, has reached an age to retire with 
a claim on the nation's exchequer and the people's benediction of 
"well done". He belongs to Iowa, for here he practiced law, and 
from the state bar he rose to the bench (though originally by 
profession a physician), to attain a peership among judges — an 
eminence traced to a high order of gifts, industry and well- 
grounded opinions. 

On his western circuit I had occasion to study the judge, and 
observed how impatient he was with showy-talking lawyers, and 
how great his aversion to shams. The stuffed advocate he first 






REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 265 

took from his base as a child takes up a doll, and then shook the 
bran out of him. He placed men on the rack by an inquiry. So 
fearful was a nervous lawyer about to open a case, that he said 
there was clear sailing if Miller did not ask him a question. There 
was a scowl until the point of the case was in bold relief, and ver- 
bal repetitions only brought nervous unrest, while many of the 
brothers in gown slept in unconcern. 

In paying my regards as a citizen, I was conducted into a work- 
shop of the judge, where piles of volumes and legal lore in tons 
avoirdupois engaged at late hours the servant of the nation, in that 
new era of jurisprudence involved in acts of treason, war and recon- 
struction. I think a reporter never unlocked him, but to an lowan 
he was frank in opinions. I could mention how and where he 
would have been in a collision with our ''Moses", Andrew Johnson. 
In Grant's sagacity he had confidence. If he holds that the ex-sec- 
retary of the treasury and chief justice. Chase, laid the country 
under deep obligation, there would be small chance of dissent. It 
was an honor to the state of his adoption to be chosen the orator 
at our great centennial constitutional convention at Philadelphia. 
Does it lack in a popular style of address, it is yet profound, a fit 
study for a people, impatient alike with quotation and declamation. 
Master of the instrument he so faithfully expounded, it detracts 
nothing from his fame that he enlarged on Iowa details, while set- 
ting the state in a picture that shows him an artist in eulogy. To 
him a high niche is assured. 

Judge John F. Dillon was early an orphan, but grew on our 
soil in the mould of a true gentleman. With limited literary 
advantages in youth, he was a student of books while winning the 
honor of men full of business, and ready to confide and extol a 
promising legal light. This was the firm of Cook & Sergent. Mr. 
Dillon was eminently social, but neither friendship nor sympathy 
warped his judgment in the interpretation of laws while a practi- 
tioner or subsequently. He early received local judicial honors, 
then the seat of a chief justice by a popular vote, later a Federal 
appointment in a district embracing many states, loyal, semi-loyal 
and one a traitor to the flag. His office was far from a sinecure, 
and gave occasion for study in solving new points of law, involving 
great principles and vast sums. Litigants in their impatience and 
anger could not move one who found, like the great English jurist, 
"popularity which follows, rather than that which is run after". 



266 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

To a relative his decisions seemed in corporate matters too impar- 
tial if not cruel, but it was this evidence of the strictest judicial 
integrity which later brought large gains and honors well known to 
the legal profession. 

Great industry, combined with literary taste, early brought him 
into notice as a publicist and author — the work on municipal cor- 
porations being a standard authority not only in the West, but 
found on the desks of our ablest jurists everywhere. 

In the chapter on railroads I have narrated how Judge Dillon 
was called from Iowa. Friends at the bar parted with him reluc- 
tantly, as did the state with reluctant adieu. His law lectures 
found in the students of Columbia College eager listeners, appreci- 
ating literary finish, and high tone on questions of corporate and 
national obligations. But he was soon allured from the college 
to be the chief counsel of the Union Pacific Railway, and later add- 
ing the duties of an attorney for the railway magnate of the 
age — Jay Gould. Mr. Dillon is welcome to the best literary and 
social circles of the great city. He is well conditioned at sixty, 
with a competence and that content found in professional eminence. 

Judge James M. Love was a resident of Keokuk, the abode of 
not a few famed citizens. It has furnished in my time a congress- 
man. United States senator, two cabinet ministers, and three 
judges with national fame, besides eminent army officers. Judge 
Love was a democrat before the war era, known to me as a partisan 
state senator, and for the life of a generation a non-partisan jurist. 
It is the fact that no suitor or counsel could wish a change of 
venue on the ground of prejudice, and as true that no suitor feared 
that politics would occasion a bias in a trial. A kind heart exe- 
crated the proposed indictment for crime of one who had the stare 
of a lunatic. Judge Love's consideration for young practition- 
ers won life-long friendships. He was a patient listener on grave 
criminal trials, and begot the respect even of the guilty receiving 
a meted sentence. 

A southerner might have been extreme as a state-rights theo- 
rist. Principle was shown in his regard for the opinions of our 
state court. Thus there has been observed a pleasant comity and 
harmony of Federal and state courts so honorable to each. The 
state retains him at the University Law School as a lecturer. 
Clear in statement, an oracle, and genial, he charms with his schol- 
arship shown in leading cases not less than in occasional addresses. 



BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 267 

embellished with a high order of rhetoric. It is high compliment 
that the regard in which he is held as a citizen is only exceeded by 
so wide and universal esteem that nothing save party edicts has 
delayed service as a Federal judge beyond the boundary of state 
lines. 

Hon. George W. McCrary is another jurist, hailing from Keo- 
kuk, who claims as a birthright the name of Hawkeye. No Iowa 
citizen has passed to eminence on more varied rounds of service. 
A state representative, repeatedly a member of Congress, rising to 
an authority and authorship on elections. Cabinet minister under 
President Hayes until a resignation to accept a circuit judgeship in 
place of Judge Dillon, he vacated the office for the lucrative and 
responsible duties of counsel of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa 
Fe Railways. Of a phlegmatic temperament, and utterly devoid of 
show in manner, of pretence in his profession, he became a univers- 
ally trusted friend and a safe counsellor. His career is a living 
refutation of the opinion that in the wild West pretension is the 
only road to success. At the bar his subdued voice was suggestive 
of an apology for an appearance, and counsel were so far won by 
his urbanity on the bench, that if their case was lost, they had at 
least made a sympathetic friend. In great contests for a seat in 
Congress (often provoking, by charges of fraud, the question by 
Mr. Stevens before a vote, " Which is our scoundrel ? ") it was a 
remark, " He is not of my politics, but I shall shut my eyes and 
follow McCrary, the chairman." Such impressions, begotten by a 
mild eye, clear and calm statement, gave eminent fitness for a cor- 
poration lawyer. Jurors forgot their prejudices to listen, and 
judges indulged only confidence in counsel who never misled by an 
authority, or asked a verdict on trivial technical points of law. 

HON. J. K. GRAVES. 

J. K. Graves, a resident of Dubuque, has just passed the mile- 
stone of a half century, A cheery face represents a brilliant wit, 
great enterprise and laudable ambition. He was not a soldier in 
the war of the rebellion, but claimed the honor of cashing drafts to 
the amount of thirty thousand dollars to clothe our volunteers, 
while our state treasury was empty. The era of peace found him 
with personal engagements and business associations, but attract- 
ing thousands of voters to make him a radical republican senator 



268 REMINISCENCES OF FOBTY TEARS. 

from a democratic district. His financial career may not be one of 
unvarying good fortune, but business enterprise in his own city, 
liberality with a plethoric purse in removing an incubus of debt 
from churches in his city, making unasked a liberal draft to a 
worn-down educator, Dr. George F. Magoun, bidding him travel in 
foreign lands — these are a few of many good deeds that "shine in 
a naughty world", reflecting the nobility of manhood. 

HON. D. M. MONINGER, 

Our national herding domain has given to their owners the 
name of cattle kings. More eminent than the oriental chiefs, or 
cattle barons by virtue of capital and enterprise in pre-occupancy, 
yet they are quite eclipsed in fame by that princely and honored 
breeder and feeder, Hon. D. M. Moninger, of Galvin, Iowa. 

It is a day of specialists and noble rivalries when a showy voca- 
tion awakens admirers, but the age is often oblivious to the claims 
of heroes in humble callings. Years and sharp rivalries have not 
left out from bovine literature the names of Booth and Bates as 
benefactors, by their skill and devotion to the brute related to the 
vocation of rural life. To be the painter of an animal has earned 
a bestowment of medals and won the company of savants and 
princes. Should not the rearing of fine breeds receive honor? 
Iowa has a citizen, Moninger, justly the rival and peer of cattle 
fanciers in the new and old world. This is his distinction — with- 
out a great cash outlay, or wealth gained in selling bloods, he 
becomes an educator of the masses by his prize herd of steers for 
beef, and points the way where the farmers may follow, not by 
extolling pedigree, rather by the animals crossed with the eye of an 
artist, and the skill of a breeder and care of a feeder. 

Hon. J. D. Gillet, deceased, of Illinois, the great feeder, was the 
examplar by his stock in the line where the Iowa pupil surpasses 
his master. Together they had aimed to establish a beef breed, as 
I urged years ago, but, failing of the money in that venture, there 
is left the fame founded on the best beef, heaviest weight for age, 
and comeliest animals known to eye tests, butcher's block and epi- 
curian tastes. Not that the world-renowned steer bore my name, 
and that Presidents have dined on the loin, do I rejoice, but for the 
elevation of agriculture and the wealth brought by patterns of 
excellence. The modesty and integrity of Mr. Moninger, the still 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 269 

successful breeder for the millions, I cannot fail to notice. In his 
home, overlooking the Minerva valley of corn and cattle, there is 
an Iowa gentleman as fortunate in competence and family as an 
honor to his state and vocation — Moninger of the short-horn crim- 
son herd — a patron and friend of Iowa College, and high on the 
roll of her rural nobility. 

HON. J. B. HOWELL, OF KEOKUK, 

A veteran journalist, filled the Grimes senatorial vacancy with 
honor. Appointed later a judge on the court of claims, he served 
for years with fidelity while struggling with a disease that, before 
advanced years, ended the life of a courageous, upright and able 
citizen and political journalist. 

HON. JAMES W. McDILL, OF CRESTON, 

held a short senatorial term also, having been for years familiar 
with political affairs in Washington in clerical service. On return- 
ing to Iowa, he became a judge of marked ability. For years he 
was the legal member of the Iowa state railway commission, and 
is now an extensive farmer, witli a law practice in the locality from 
which he rose to the stature of an official and citizen of high 
repute. 

THE LATE HENRY CLAY DEAN. 

The press of Iowa, especially the State Register, has spread a 
beautiful and broad mantle of charity over the eventful and erratic 
career of Henry Clay Dean, just closed. It is quite a safe assump- 
tion that he, the subject of unstinted praise as an orator and of 
merciless satire as the ''great unwashed", would have prized the 
elegant, tender tribute of Clarkson ante mortem, more than now, if 
in that sulphurous abode to which he was so often consigned by 
the free-hand editorials of the last quarter of a century. 

Preliminarily, I do not conceal the fact of an intimacy which 
grew out of compliments by Dean on my espousal of Greeley for 
president fifteen years ago. Old partisan friends found no words 
fitting to represent a republican who could win the praise of so 
"unsavory a rebel". This moved to hearty condolence by letters 



270 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

and personal visits, and tliough unavailing to blunt the pen of par- 
tisan censors it caused me to know and study one of the eccentric 
great characters of our time. 

Dean died last month at Eebel Cove, Missouri, a name of his 
own choice, hardly a misnomer in the light of personal history. 
His age was sixty-five years. The public has little knowledge of 
his life in a Pennsylvania cabin, and of a poor family imbibing a 
slave-holding spirit from Virginia residents on the border, until the 
flattery for the inchoate young orator bore him, in 1849, on the 
emigration tide to the then new state of Ohio. Here for nearly 
forty years he has been known — preacher, politician, publicist, 
farmer, lecturer and lawyer. Charity often brought him food, and 
chance occupation and residence, until called by Senators Dodge 
and Jones, of Iowa (in reward, so called, for political service), and 
the warm friendship of Stephen A. Douglas, to be chaplain of the 
United States Senate. The honored circuit rider did not lose his 
balance; adjusting those unkempt locks and concealing his corn-cob 
pipe, shedding his brown shirt and patched suit of jeans for a 
" splendid fit " by a Hebrew certificate, and appearing in the Sen- 
ate, he was less a boor on duty than he had been heralded. Moved 
to compensate by utility what he lacked in ornament in the "grand 
forum ", he corrected and wrote speeches for his especial political 
friends, giving some verdure to the mental wastes of mediocrities. 
Crowds gathered around him, wherever chaplain Dean held sway 
by originality in caricature and manner — a clerical clown burn- 
ing coarse powder in pyrotechnic displays which became monoto- 
nous. But the Sunday attendance was meager, and sparseness of 
numbers at the morning prayer made the service almost a bur- 
lesque. This I remember as his description — " The vice-presi- 
dent dull as the wooden mace he used, calling to order a straggling 
senator or two, a clerk busy fumbling his journal, page boys beck- 
oned into silence by the door-keeper, cloak men and barbers look- 
ing out for customers and quarters. Oh, what a crowd to make 
a prayer for! A creaking heathen prayer-mill on the cupola 
would have been as serviceable to most of the senators as the 
chaplain's prayers." So he stepped down from the marble desk 
and retired to his Iowa home, to find that he was less than a god 
among the brethren to whom he had sent his Parthian arrows, 
and in disfavor with the Bishop whose appointment had been 
declined. 



REMINISCENCES OF FOBTY YEAES. 271 

From this time we date his career of bitterness and misan- 
thropy. Washington society was hollow, Iowa was fanatical, his 
church cowardly, giving the "fine-haired sprigs of divinity a 
chance to scatter the good congregations, and no place for a loyal 
democrat but on Skunk river fiats". To be forgotten was dire 
punishment, hell itself. To escape this and heal the wounds of 
neglect, and also to repel assaults, he wrote for the press, lectured, 
and took up cases in court, which might make him the poor man's 
advocate; by his anathemas he would be the terror of corpora- 
tions; and, in the defense of the Union, receive the honors of a 
patriot. The flag no doubt he loved, yet saw only its enemies in 
free sellers who disputed the policy of Douglas, and the party that 
called to arms against traitors. Threats of fire-eaters he echoed 
with an abandon that caused taunts and threats of violence, which 
culminated early in the war in an arrest and the soldiers' resolve 
that he should be hung for a reviling assault on Mr. Lincoln and 
the " Union hirelings ". A march in the gleam of bayonets held 
by the jeered cohorts caused so little alarm for his personal safety 
that an intercession and rescue by Union friends failed to secure 
a thankful recognition, rather the cool remark that his blood was 
worth more shed then by fanatic violence for the world, than in 
sluggish flow to old age. Disdaining a mask, he would hold mere 
policy as the last resort of an imbecile ; and he was elated by rebel 
victories, and predicted that the South would never submit. The 
declaration by the national democracy that "the war was a fail- 
ure ", found no warmer advocate, nor one so bitter in denunciation 
of the war democrat — a tory away from home. The press at the 
South printed with compliments his disunion philippics, which min- 
istered to his vanity, while the coldness of his party adherents at 
the North refused a fair recognition of the claims of the most elo- 
quent advocate of the cause daily becoming more desperate. 

The sky to Dean was leaden, starless, and himself fated to 
obscurity if not derision and contempt. Only the past became 
eloquent ; the present tame, linked to the sway of corporations and 
tyrants dominating in a drear future. He had such a chronic hatred 
of corporations that a ride in a luxurious railway coach brought 
no pleasure. The solace found in a Havana segar was a delusion 
contrasted with what he gained from the corn-cob pipe around the 
log cabin hearth. All was degeneracy. Since Clay and Webster, 
the Senate had been bereft of orators. We have -no genius that 



272 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

Sha.kespeare will not eclipse in the realm of thought for all time. 
Incredulous as to modern invention and discovery, he was enthu- 
siastic over the lost arts and charmed with ancient literature and 
doubtful legends. The world generally was awry ; society retro- 
gressive, with exceptional persons reflecting man in the morning 
of creation for whom he yet avowed nobility. 

Thousands will remember him for matchless description of the 
race fresh from the hands of the Creator. We listened to a genius 
and preacher who had found a theme worthy of his great powers. 
You saw all the elements in nature under law upheld for man ; the 
ark floating; the tragedy on Calvary; the stars going out and the 
sun turned to darkness only when the last born of the benighted 
had entered on an endless career of fruition. He ejaculated with 
deep emotion, «Poor man, look up; proud rebel, kneel; scorning 
infidel, hush, or be damned ! " His personal appearance of unclean- 
liness was a real case of hydrophobia in a figure without the vio- 
lent spasms. An apology that clothes did not make the man did 
not meet the demand of society for comeliness. A brain that 
bulged with combativeness gave little control to a tongue when set 
on fire, endangering in turn his friends and everyone whom he 
encountered. Personal following he had little, and could be 
quoted for brilliancy rather than for safe counsel. Without a 
great purpose, he was floating without pilot or rudder to an uncer- 
tain harbor. 

The theme of immortality in a sermon thirty years agone by 
Dean left impressions yet vivid, and moves to pity that education 
was denied in discipline to such noble elementary forces. It 
excites wonder that an Ishmaelite career should develop the rarest 
fruits of generous culture, an historian of ability, a gifted orator, 
most pathetic in appeal and sublime in imagery, ranking him the 
peer of rhetoricians and a master of assemblies. Apart from his 
accomplishments so well known in Iowa, I do not close without 
noting those redeeming virtues not to be obscured by political 
offenses. His verbal promise carried the value of a bond. 

Concluding these words on Iowa personages and friends, I have 
a presentiment ; it is that no more of faint praise or warm admira- 
tion will fall from my pen. For the fallen by the way I could 
only offer a laurel sprig prepared by affection, and for the living 
few actors and thousands more humble, but not less Avorthy 
patriots, soldiers with stars and scars, Christians valiant, a sigh. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 273 

Xerxes at tlae head of his army, crossing the Hellespont into 
Greece, was seen to shed tears in thought that in one hundred 
years not one of the braves would be alive. Far less is my limit 
of allotted years, and that of comrades, but my grief will be 
assuaged in hope that we are all not to be forgotten by the children 
sporting on the grass, which may be green over the mounds where 
our ashes repose. If there be no inscription to tell where we fell, 
there may be a record of deeds to ally us with a heroic age, counsels 
and blood which will long survive our departure. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Indians — The Sacs and Foxes in Iowa — The Friend of the Indians, 
John L. Davenport — Indians and the Cattle Husbandry — The 
True Policy of the Nation toxoard its Wards. 

Since my entrance into public life, I have been interested in the 
peculiar phases of the Indian problem. I find that our American 
policy has wanted advocates bold to suggest and rigorous to per- 
form. The national cost for protection on the frontier has been 
so great that it would have been economy for the government to 
have maintained the various tribes at academic halls and first-class 
hotels, rather than to incur the expense of wasted annuities and of 
soldiers in sufficient numbers to protect against the "braves" on 
the war path. Meantime frontiersmen have maintained that " the 
only good Indian was a dead one ", and Eastern philanthropy has 
asserted that fraudulent treaties and bad faith were sins " crying to 
heaven." With an eastern birth and education and a western resi- 
dence, I cannot coincide with either party, believing that a radical 
policy of government will remove the. scandals of the past, and 
elevate the living remnants of barbarism in the scale of humanity, 
to become aids to a higher civilization. It is within the memory 
of residents of Iowa that all its soil was claimed by some twenty 
or more ambitious tribes. These are reduced by extinction and 
emigration to the remnants of one tribe, the Sacs and Foxes. 

THE SACS AND FOX INDIANS. 

At Grinnell, from the college telescope tower, you can see the 
smoke from the wigwams of these Indians twenty miles north-east, 
by the Iowa Eiver. They number about four hundred, and are 
truly an object lesson near home, cognate to history, which confers 
slight honor on their neighbors, the pale faces. I do not judge the 
whites harshly. The Indians have been held the wards of the 



BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 275 

nation, to wliom they entrusted under treaty stipulations their 
money, Avhich draws five per cent, interest and aggregates from 
113,000 to .f 15,000 annually. 

I knew them only by roving hunting bands up to 1856, when I 
was a senatorial condidate, and it was rumored that he Avho would 
shelter black runaway slaves would favor the Indians, petitioning 
the state to remain here on their old hunting grounds. To this 
charge I made no answer, and on investigation became their friend. 
By an interpreter it was learned that after their removal to a res- 
ervation west of the Missouri River, a tribal war broke out which 
threatened the extermination of the weaker party. Their only 
way of escape was to old haunts on the Iowa River, near which 
are ancient mounds marking the burial place of ancestors. One of 
their good friends, during the session of the legislature at Iowa 
City, brought me a petition from many of their neighbors, my con- 
stituents, asking permission for them to remain in the state while 
peaceful. This was endorsed by Governor Grimes as humane. 
Then followed the passage of a law which allowed them to remain 
in Iowa while peaceful, and to become owners in fee of lands which 
they have since owned, above one thousand acres. From my inter- 
est in their welfare, as they passed, painted and forlorn, not in 
compliment they were called "Grinnell's Indians", and their intru- 
sion by calls for food at my house was varied by a fire set in the 
street and whoops and war dances for my home entertainment. 
These professions of regard I improved by calling out "shame", 
when I met the braves riding ponies and the squaws on foot. 
Then they were made to know that a condition of my friendship 
and an effort to secure the payment of annuities in Iowa, was that 
they would send their children to school; only responded to by 
scowls and a deep ugh ! ugh ! I called on them one pleasant after- 
noon autumn feast-day, and on the mention of school, the bucks 
hied away one by one in the bushes, leaving my entertainment to 
the squaws. The children I could no more fondle than tlieir wild 
game ; yet they were in line, objects of maternal solicitude, first by 
hasty washing, followed by head-clearing devices — a most disgust- 
ing episode in a show of celerity in destruction of vermin, most 
commendable, yet cutting short as fruitless my educational call on 
the dusky tribe. 

They were poor, morose, frequent beggars, and became intox- 
icated whenever a white whiskey dealer was sordid and base 



276 BEMINISCENCES OF FOBTY YEARS. 

enough to dare sell the fire-water. Their annuities were withheld 
to compel their return to Nebraska, which I deemed great injustice, 
and while in Congress made futile attempts for a remedy. Success 
came at last by a plan which, however devoid of the marks of 
high statesmanship, was useful in an emergency where precedent 
becomes tyranny and red tape the sign of a man lapsed into an offi- 
cial machine. There is an Indian appropriation bill before each 
Congress with the sanction of commissioner and Indian affairs com- 
mittee, which is considered in committee of the whole. That was 
my place for hearing by amendment under a five-minute rule, and 
trial was vain while Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, the leader of the house 
and chairman of the committee, was in opposition. 

To him I made an appeal in behalf of my Indians. "The 
case," he said, "I know is strong, but we have a unanimous 
report, and are pledged to the bill." I replied, "Suppose you are 
not present when my amendment is offered." " That is another 
view. Duties don't clash, and I wish without dereliction I might 
serve poor people, or encourage in good faith Avhat has been so 
often here voted down." "I will take care of that if you will 
allow me " ; which remark met with a friendly response. 

The right person I found, to send at a proper time his card to 
Mr. Stevens, asking for a few minutes, and in his absence, on 
reading the "Sacs and Fox's appropriation" item, 1 offered this 
amendment — 

" Provided, that the portion of the tribe now residing in Tama 
county, Iowa, shall, during their good behavior and residence in 
Iowa, with the consent of that state, be paid at their present 
homes annuity ^ro rata.'' 

It was opposed as an innovation, yet the call for Mr. Stevens 
was futile, and amidst shouts, "It's just! who cares if the Indians 
get it?" etc., the amendment was adopted without tellers or divi- 
sion. Thus after the lapse of near twenty-five years, I am not 
aware that this disbursement of money in Iowa, nor the ethics of 
my device in capturing the head of the committee, have been 
called in question. 

What now of the Indians ? They were proprietors of the soil, 
with money, school-house, teachers and agents furnished, taking 
liberties denied white men ; building grove camp fires, hunting 
and fishing at all seasons; beyond contact with savage tribes, 
in the sound of church bells, enjoying the example and comities 



EEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 277 

of an industrious, temperate and religious people. Did they 
make advances in real civilization? None. One of the braves 
said, " If whisky was shut out from Heaven, he did not want to 
go there." Another said, "If you can take me into a country 
where there is plenty of corn and whisky, I will go right along." 
If they were seldom drunk, it could be charged to the scarcity 
of the "fire-water" rather than to virtuous abstinence. To have 
flaunted human scalps as trophies would only have been a signal 
for expatriation, or retaliation. With the gusto of whites they 
puffed their cigar; really, they smoke well, and their fluency 
with oaths in English is only further evidence as to capacity 
for learning, had it not been easier to retain the game of the forest 
in captivity, than our dusky wards in a school-house. Thus they 
have sunken under the care of legal and white guardianship — a 
travesty of paternal solicitude.* 

Their history in Iowa furnishes little to inspire confidence in 
present methods toward an elevation in the scale of humanity. 
Are there new devices ? This question may have an answer in a 
broad national policy, which I hope to outline. Meantime there 
is credit due to local workers sent by the Government, and to 
many provisions made by statutes. The peaceful but stern policy 
of England in dealing with her red man, on this continent, is to the 
credit of that nation, contrasted with our own, yet not with nobler 
promptings. 

Hon. George L. Davenport, late agent, was a born patroon, 
who spoke with good judgment, as I recall. I met the faithful old 
man, hampered by red tape, returning to his home in Davenport 
for a few days' recreation. When I came to Iowa his name was 
associated with that beautiful city, Davenport ; he was bank presi- 

* They make their amiual hunting circuits, sleep on the ground, compel the 
squaws to perform all the labor ; their wigwams are in sight from passing railway 
trains, the school-house, and within the sound of the church bell ; an honest agent 
and devoted teacher have been furnished by the government, yet they have built 
no houses, have neither increased in numbers, learned to read, nor adopted the 
customs and habits of their white neighbors. Owners in fee of rich acres, their 
huts are smoky and rude as those of their progenitors visited by De Soto three 
hundred years ago, and they are as truly savage as the tribes of King Phillip met 
by the Pilgrim Fathers. I admit the fact of an excejitional school, church and 
good Indian, in the romantic dim elsewhere. But if these are the Sacs and Foxes 
in the "green tree" of Iowa civilization, Avhat of the roving bands in the "dry 
tree" on the distant frontier, whose eminent virtues are best known in romance 
and tradition. 



278 BEMINISCENCES OF FOBTY TEAES. 

deut, capitalist and railway director, ranking with millionaires. 
One reverse had followed another in quick succession — partial 
deafness, family bereavement, loss of property ; and he was ready 
to accept a small salary as agent for the remnants of tribes who 
were his playmates in childhood. He was Prince George, the 
great heir, feted by Black Hawk, and made welcome to their 
camps and sacred feasts. Thirty thousand souls have become 
reduced to hundreds, the elder of Avhom talked of fleet ponies, 
arrows tipped with poison, war whoop and scalping enemies. 
Helpless to control but warm in the affections, he was devoted in 
his mission, but utterly impotent in attracting the children to 
school, and in arrest of the career of hereditary nomads. To the 
poor old man they were loyal, cheerfully hieing away to their 
camps, after daily embracing with tears one with only the thread- 
bare garments of fallen royalty. 

It was a touching historic picture of human vicissitude, while 
the devotion of a Davenport is a tribute to his manly heart. Said 
he, '' They talked of hunts and races fifty years ago, of their braves 
fallen, and they prayed the Good Spirit that I might never be 
weary or thirsty, while the Iowa river rolled and they had a hand 
to steady a rifle to bring down the game. I am renewing my age. 
The down from the birds they pluck for my pillow, and bring the 
daintiest food for my table, but they are only grown-up savages, 
ready to die for me if I would but be indulgent to their modes of 
life, which I cannot be." 

In the sequel it was not as I wished, that their friend might 
long live to mould and inspire to a new life. He said, "They talk 
of following me in song and death-march, and say that their last 
and earliest prayer is to the Great Spirit for me, and that they will 
carry my game in the good hunting-grounds." The old man did not 
repel their wish to be his pall-bearers, or slight the medicine man 
and spiritual incantations. Mr. Davenport fell prematurely and 
brought wailing on the reservation ; and not his dusky playmates 
only, but his Iowa neighbors also, mingled their tears of regret 
that a true friend was cut off from a loved and promising agency for 
the Sacs and Foxes — a tribe once claiming land ownership from 
the father to the mother of waters. 

Tribal frictions, war and disease have reduced their majority of 
thousands to that of but one in five hundred of our state population ; 
and their present limit of land ownership to three acres each, 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 279 

points to a near day of extinction, if not an absorption. Let them, 
with other tribes, be governed, as are our children and the unfortu- 
nates ; and an equal share will give one hundred and sixty acres 
of land to a family. Their presence will then no longer be an 
offense to society, or a menace on the borders. This, as a state 
policy, would be a substitute for the burlesque methods of to-day. 
From the school-house might come forth a subject for the pen of 
the romancer. Art might develop a painter, and a sweet voice 
might attract the lovers of melody; virtue might find its noble 
exemplars and the novelist many a hero. Then we should hear no 
more the rude jeers for "poor Lo!" returning from his hunts on 
the low-necked, reeling pony, and with an acute ear for an alarm 
locomotive whistle which brought the glee of a coast wrecker, in the 
promise of fresh beef mangled by the railway trains, eking out a 
subsistence maintained by the sale of peltry and by begging, until 
the migration of fowls and the unlocking of the streams offered 
chances for food. 

While officially studying our cattle industries on the border I 
made an examination of the Indian question and made a report to 
the government, which I here condense, with some interspersed 
remarks. 

THE INDIAN AND CATTLE HUSBANDRY. 

Our dusky wards may be valuable scouts, but have not the 
qualities of good herdsmen. They are never out of mind on the 
frontier and will not be overlooked in this discussion. Just return- 
ing from the western borders, the writer may be charged by some 
with imbibing the common frontier sentiment that "the only good 
Indian is a dead one". To that he demurs, having sat at the hos- 
pitable table of the Creek by the Arkansas, employed the Cherokee 
as a faithful guide, and camped with the Choctaw, finding safe 
repose in the rustle of his cornfields ; and, nearer home, by our 
Iowa river the Sacs and Foxes offered him, in return for supposed 
favors, the compliment of rude songs and the war-dance. 

The Indian has few friends on the cattle-ranges, is commonly 
under suspicion as a cattle-thief and is a menace and terror to 
unprotected families. His red blanket is a convenient device for 
inciting a stampede of cattle, in Avhich he takes grim delight, and, 
on a denial of tobacco or whiskey, secretly starts the devastating 



280 BEMINISCENCEiS OF FORTY YEABS. 

fires which in dry seasons sweep uncontrolled for hundreds of 
miles, driving, for his purpose, the buffalo into the gorges to await 
wanton slaughter, and leaving the ranchmen the alternative of a 
roving, starving herd, or a drive to grass on an unburned district. 
Such acts provoke retaliation, and the only valid excuse for even 
our small army is his presence, and a fear that on the least provo- 
cation he may take to the war-path. These are our wards, scat- 
tered and uncontrolled, tolerated in indulgences and idleness which 
are the nurses of imbecility and treachery. 

Is not the nation, their self-appointed guardian, most at fault in 
allowing them the dignity of equals in treaty-making, and then 
treating them as dependent children to be fed and maintained in 
idleness under threats, to the disgust alike of every circle around 
the camp-fires on the plains (the miner who holds a white man as 
good as an Indian, if as well-behaved,) and every owner of a herd 
beyond the reach of military pi-otection ? 

The Indian tribes embrace three hundred thousand souls, not 
half the average population of a medium state ; yet they set up 
claim to hunting-grounds and reservations equal to the area of five 
of our large states with twenty times their numbers. They have 
imperiled the emigrant, turned back surveying parties, massacred 
the defenseless, and, beyond all the moneys disbursed of trust 
funds, have, by military defenses and actual losses, cost the govern- 
ment in the last half century hundreds of millions of dollars above 
the sum expended by any nation in any historical epoch on an equal 
number of subjects; and all, with rare exceptions, in worse than 
fruitless efforts for their civilization. What, then, is the correct 
policy for the nation and right to the pioneer ? I answer : Locate 
them in the Indian Territory. Leave undisturbed the Creek, 
Choctaw and Cherokee tribes, that, localized, have made substan- 
tial progress. 

Of the thirty-five million acres let one hundred and sixty acres 
of well-watered, fertile lands be set apart for each Indian family, 
which would leave many millions of acres for the children, to be 
conveyed and held in fee on their reaching manhood. Then dis- 
pose of the reservations, great and small, under a graduated system, 
at their full value to herdsmen and farmers, and place the proceeds 
to the credit of our wards, to be expended for their benefit on their 
new homes in education and improvement. You have then made 
the roving savage richer than the average pale-face — compelled 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 281 

the wards, like their fated guardians, to work or endure hunger. 
This plan will substitute a cheap local and effective police for an 
ineffective, costly standing army, solving in ten years one of the 
great problems of our time in the interest of humanity. Thus we 
may discharge an imperative obligation by rescuing the Aborigines 
from decimation, and providing for their elevation to the rank of 
civilized man. 

Is it objected that this destroys his natural rights and places 
him in slavish subjection? What are his actual rights, and is he 
placed under more absolute control than the minor? If he has a 
right to a home, it is accorded to him ; if to property, then in that 
he should have the protection of a powerful nation. If he claims 
millions of acres, over which to roam as hunting grounds, where 
did he get his title ? If afraid of the tyranny of his guardian gov- 
ernment, let him rise to the plane of citizenship and take part in 
making our laws, there being nothing in race or previous condition 
to hinder, and assert his independence. Encouraged to abandon 
the precarious pursuits of hunting and fishing by the incitements 
to home improvement and the certainty of protection, it is possible 
his seeming doom may be averted. It is stern history tliat he 
has no power to arrest the natural encroachments of civilization, 
and there is far more of mere sentimentality in the defense of his 
ownership of our country than of good law — deemed the first 
product of a great nation. I am Avith the herdsman who innocently 
drives across the reservation and consumes the grass where burned 
for centuries. He has a precedent, and the example of the fathers, 
who appropriated what the savage would not, causing in their 
journeying westward ''the wilderness and solitary place to be glad 
for their presence ". 

I cite a paragraph from an oration by Ex-President John 
Quincy Adams, eighty years ago, in defense of the fathers, and 
their sons, who simply assert their equality as herdsmen with the 
nomadic hunter and the savage, where Nature has spread gifts 
with a lavish hand that are unused : 



The Indian right of possession itself stands, with regard to the greatest part of 
the country, upon a questionable foundation. Their cultivated fields, their con- 
structed habitations, a space of ample sufficiency for their subsistence, and what- 
ever they had annexed to themselves by personal labor, was undoubtedly by the 
laws ot nature theirs. But what is the right of a huntsman to the forest of a thou- 
sand miles, over which he has accidentally ranged in quest of prey? Shall the 



282 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

liberal bounties of Providence to the race of man be monopolized by one of ten 
thousand for wliom they were created ? Shall the exuberant bosom of tlie common 
mother, amply adequate to the nourishment of millions, be claimed exclusively by 
a few hundreds of her offspring? Shall the lordly savage not only disdain the 
virtues and enjoyments of civilization himself, but shall he control the civilization 
of a world ? 

This is the philosophy of Grotins, Pufendorf and Vattel; the 
latter authority, in his "Law of Nations", says: 

A nation may lawfully take possession of a part of a vast country, in which are 
found none but erratic nations, incapable, by the smallness of their numbers, to 
people the whole. The earth belongs to the human race in general, and was 
designed to furnish it with subsistence. If each nation had resolved from the 
beginning to appropriate to itself a vast country, that the people might live only by 
hunting, fishing and wild fruits, our globe would not be sufficient to maintain a 
tenth part of its present inhabitants. People have not, then, deviated from the 
views of nature in confining the Indians within narrow limits. 

I would not be understood as recommending the defrauding 
even of a savage of that which he properly appropriates, or which 
promises to be a probable advantage to his posterity. I would 
change his mode of life, now dangerous to neighbors, and the nurse 
of immoralities. I would take them as children into the great 
family, subjected to wholesome law, and localized where their 
interests can be guarded, education and industry enforced, with a 
visitation of the punishment of a court rather than the border 
retaliation. 

Had this policy been adopted during the last thirty years, we 
should have reared worthy specimens of the race — not barbarians 
Avith beastly instincts, relying on a gun for food, and a dog for a 
companion, except when slain in the extremity of hunger or carved 
for a religious feast. This fostering of imbecility, ignorance, idle- 
ness and the grossest animalism, leaves the dusky characters as 
they were a century ago, for our reproach. 

NATIONAL ABSOLUTE CONTROL. 

This policy is the dictate of humane statesmanship, calling but 
for a few chapters of national legislation, relegating the whole 
question to a mutual council rather than to the caprice and false 
precedents of doubtful friends. The object of the commission" 
should be, the breaking of the bonds of woman's serfdom; com- 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 283 

pelling a selection and occupancy of lands by the adult males, with 
bread and liberty contingent upon work. Education should be 
absolutely compulsory, as in our state reformatory institutions. 

There is nothing in the magnitude of the numbers involved to 
discourage. After the adults have taken the land in severalty, 
there will not exceed twenty -five thousand men under compulsory 
law, and thirty thousand children of a school age will be a high 
estimate of the number falling under treatment as infants and 
youth. This scheme is a far remove from maudlin sympathy and 
a toleration of idleness, when work should be the demand to save 
from the pangs of hunger; obedience and decency would be the 
conditions of governmental control and protection. The benign 
forces of this century wait on the culmination of so beneficent a 
scheme. 

The last sands of the memorable 1890 are falling, and General 
Booth, of the Salvation Army, proposes to the world a humane 
scheme for London's unfortunates — "In Darkest England and the 
Way out." American philanthropy can no longer be indifferent 
to the miseries of our Indian tribes. Mothers wait for emancipar 
tion from serfdom. The haughty, oppressive lords require a gov- 
ernmental exaction of labor as a condition and practice to exempt 
from hvmger. Neglected children and youth call for compulsory 
education. Who will have part in the coloring of this picture — a 
symbol of the beneficence of millions of hearts who Avill it? 
Where are the leaders who will execute, and the artists who will 
paint a matchless testimonial to a great thought embodied in sub- 
lime reality ? — " The American Indian rescued from barbarism, in 
the family of civilization — a man!" 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

TJie Prohibition Temperance Issue — SJcirmish Line Demo7istraHons 
— The Political Status — Prohibition Party — An Address- - 
The Iowa Chiirches — George C. Haddock — Laws of Heredity — 
Revenue from Whishey. 

A LONG public contest is not necessarily monotonous. Great 
issues are replete with varied and lasting interest. From the mid- 
dle of the century to 1882, and since, there was heard in Iowa 
the clangor of arms on a great moral battle-field. The lines Avere 
daily becoming more distinct between the combatants. It was the 
lovers of order, economy, patriotism and virtue, against the most 
dangerous foe of the race, drunken with victories and stimulated 
by sordid strife for gain. Its cohorts, unchecked, will make an 
easy prey of the millions debased by appetite and blunted in their 
moral sense. Drinking usages cost more than bread. Drunkenness 
is the prolific mother of criminals ; and it has a death-roll of vic- 
tims greater than that charged to the other two great grim angels 
of destruction — disease and war. Can there be an excuse, then, 
for indifference or for silence ? 

Of the writer said one : " Let him speak, who defied the saloon 
in his own city by a prohibition proviso; who staked political suc- 
cess on a temperance plank, and inspired, so says popular opinion, 
a state to march by the light of the torch of progress, which was 
held up in Grinnell with ever increasing courage and with brighter 
radiation for nearly forty years. Far was he from a professional 
reformer ; and, though in continued demand as a speaker and writer 
on decisive occasions, yet he was never the recipient of a dime in 
the discharge of a duty linked with the pleasure found in pushing 
on a noble cause." 

The law of heredity predestined me for a radical actor on many 
lines. My venerated father left for the children the evidence of 
his spirit in a journey on foot of one hundred miles, in attendance 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 285 

at the first national abstinence meeting at Saratoga Springs, N. Y. 
Tlien it is the record of that day, that in the shadow of a distillery 
and a mammoth cider-press, himself the owner of the latter. Mayor 
Grinnell, at his own home, gave the first address in the town 
against the gigantic curse. At the head of the list of signers to 
the local temperance pledge is his name, with a John Hancock 
chirography. Then, what I saw of the baleful effects of the cider- 
drinking habits in brutal fighting at public gatherings, and the 
debauched condition of crowds returning from barn-raising and 
shooting-matches, near my old home, left their vivid impression. 
The years of my residence in cities presented a picture of degrada- 
tion and Avoe which forbade indifference when on the great theatre 
of public life I became an actor. 

To found a temperance town in the West was a cherished aspi- 
ration on leaving New York in 1854. None were wanted as neigh- 
bors who would tolerate a saloon. In fact they were repelled with 
decision, if not rudeness, wliile there was a warm welcome to a 
large class who came here to escape temptation in a struggle for 
reformation. 

SKIRMISH LINE DEMONSTRATIONS. 

The first time I crossed our wide prairie between the groves in 
a distance of twenty miles, where there was but one house, my 
party, on stopping the carriage, saw me destroy a whiskey sign, 
with a finger pointing, which said, "Whiskey for Sail." I knocked 
off the rude finger board, and took it into the hack, my company 
protesting that we should get into trouble. My apology in reply 
was, that the word " for sail " had some nautical meaning, out of 
place on a prairie. I threw the sign into a little creek, to float 
down the great river to the Gulf, lest it should entice travelers to 
drunkenness. 

Contracts were to be made for breaking prairie by the native 
ox drivers, most of whom carried a supply of whiskey, costing 
twenty cents a gallon, and mingled their drinks with most offensive 
profanity. It came to be a story of the time and had a salutary 
influence, that I actually made large contracts with the prairie- 
breakers with the proviso that I should do personally "all the 
swearing done on the job, and drink all the whiskey required." 
Big contract ! 



286 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

On the laying out of the City of Grinnell, the proviso against 
saloons was a grave affair. It was on the consideration of one 
dollar that I gave the net proceeds of sales and city lots in trust 
to the cause of education, with the usual warranty title, and " pro- 
vided that ardent spirits were not sold thereon as a beverage, 
unless by my consent or that of my legal representatives ". The 
guys, the buffetings and derision, Avith the predictions of a "one 
horse toAvn", taken with the scare of conservative friends, and the 
opinion of lawyers, esteemed very wise, that the proviso would not 
stand in the courts of law, was a test of my firm belief in the 
policy of inhibition. Time proved it, every way, a salutary step, 
bringing together a people in accord and regard for education and 
temperance. No one jeopardized his realty by public sale of 
liquors, and the Supreme Court of ■ the United States, in a case 
brought from Greeley, Colorado, sustained the principle and legality 
of such a proviso by a unanimous opinion. The growth of Grin- 
nell under the assumed cloud of title, was great and phenomenal. 
It became apparent that the high repute for good order, without a 
saloon, moved other towns to imitate, followed by the activities of 
county officials. Then came a state policy, after the building of 
railroads and the influx of population, stimulating an advance to a 
constitutional temperance amendment. 

iVo saloon was one of the three planks in my platform, on 
which I stood when elected state senator in 1856. It was my 
policy that the whole state should enjoy what our town had 
foiind beneficial. Under the state law of 1855, lager beer and 
native wine were prohibited. These beverages I voted to exempt 
in 1858. Of the beer in its use I knew nothing, and the growth 
of the grape I would encourage ; besides, a large and intelligent 
class of Germans were republicans, who promised, on this exemp- 
tion, their support of the general law, threatened by repeal. It 
was a case of "a part of a loaf or no bread", and, to keep the 
party intact on the great slavery .issue, was in mind. This honest 
expedient, with all the light then attainable, did not prove a wise 
policy. Beer and wine soon became a cloak for the sale of all 
intoxicants, and built up in most of the towns defiant saloons. 

The constitutional prohibition amendment of 1882 Avas a sweep- 
ing protest against the whole nest of vipers. It only failed by 
a clerical omission, and for it statutory prohibition was sub- 
stituted with public approval, bringing an unquestioned boon to 



BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 287 

the state. Iowa, judged by statistics in regard to illiteracy, is 
more than the Massachusetts of the West, besides boasting of a 
small percentage of criminals, and of an average of fifty county 
jails vacant within her borders for some years past. There is not 
an employer of men who has not been benefited, nor a city which 
is not rendered more attractive and richer for the destruction of 
the liquor traffic, not to mention the tens of millions of dollars 
added annually to our wealth, and the repute of her citizens, min- 
istering to state pride and attractive to the best people of the 
Republic seeking homes. 

THE POLITICAL STATUS. 

A practically united republican sentiment saved the state from 
the delusion of high license. That party, in order to self-preserva- 
tion, was compelled to oppose a ''third-party" candidate, a meas- 
ure supported by well-meaning citizens, but especially pleasing to 
saloonists, who regarded it as a scheme to divide the dominant 
party, yet impotent in assaults upon their ranks. It was upon 
this ground that Iowa temperance people were impatient with the 
devices and advice of those outside the state, ignorant of our real 
status, and of the true metal of the temperance legions. 

Persistency in demanding a national adoption of our principles 
was suspicious. Democracy, in the platforms, and in the spirit 
and practice of its adherents, was opposition to "all sumptuary" 
action. Certain republican states had espoused prohibition, and 
the national party in convention had entered a resolve in favor of 
temperance and the home. It is well known that only educating 
influences, and the burdens and crimes brought by the saloon fully 
exposed, will cause a prohibition plank to be else than political 
suicide. The republican party is not so demented as to take coun- 
sel with foes. This maxim I regard as practical good ethics, 
" There is personal responsibility for the existence around us of an 
evil which we might have prevented." The statesman reformer 
says, " Save your city or your state, if without power to control 
the nation." Thus I defend the republican party of my state, 
and am in accord with its action. 

When honored with an invitation to become a prohibition party 
candidate for governor, I replied in a letter, of which the follow- 
ing are extracts : 



288 EEMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

Grinnell, Iowa, Aug. 30, 1884. 
My dear Sir : 

I accept tlie implied compliment in the term " Independent Prohibitionist", 
but must distrust your judgment if you advise an electoral ticket in Iowa, with 
myself either at the head or tail. Independent notions, and the support of the 
lamented Greeley, brought, I know, the designation of an "assistant Democrat"; 
but this year I beg to be excused. Real Democracy deserves a better fate than 
being caught in an expediency trap, and it should now bo occupied with a more 
elevating occupation than that of the fox in the fable losing his tail, and going 
about to counsel all other foxes that it was fashionable to go without that append- 
age. There are no absolute rules of military warfare in capturing a fortress, more 
than in moral conquests, but there is one that commends itself to even the novice 
in combat, viz: Never heed the counsel of your enemies. The party that places 
free whiskey in its platform just as dishonestly tells us vote for St. John, and 
though you shoot in the air you shall be as gods among mortals. No, sir! . . . 
. This year under both Blaine and Butler it is the protection of labor and Ameri- 
can industries vs. a British policy and lower wages, with Cleveland as a leader. 

There is a plain issue The St. John vote will cut a small figiire in 

Iowa. I aspire neither to leadership nor to be counted with the "scattering", to 
shorten the pilgrimage of a party, cold and hungry for twenty-four years, which 
has, if there is any analogy in historic judgments, sixteen years of the forty yet to 
journey before reaching the promised land, for a greater crime than the worship of 
a golden calf. 

Yours, 

J. B. Grinnell. 

AN ADDRESS. 

As a part of history, I may here insert an address, written by 
me for the temperance leaders of the state in 1886. It was an 
appeal which voiced the situation then, and has an historic relation 
to the political victory of that year : 

" Preliminary discussion educated the masses up to a high plane of thought 
and statesmanship, and led to a courageous act born of deep conviction. Party 
lines were broken. Capital saw its opportunity; railway managers saw a device 
for the safety of property and persons; fabricators and farmers spoke for the 
imperiled laborers ; doting fathers, for sons on the road to shame ; victims of the 
cup, for a removal of dazzling allurements; educators held our state banner for 
literacy more firmly, fearing no rival. The five years of discussion and restriction 
furnishes a proud epoch. In the period of national depression every great material 
interest in Iowa has gained a new impulse. Domestic animals have increased in 
value and number without a precedent. The supremacy of com as king has been 
vindicated as in no other state, without alcoholic inspiration ; state credit has 
appreciated; population has increased in five years by 600,000; many thousands 
allured here by the legal inhibition of the saloon. We are the envy and admiration 
of our near sisters, alike fortunate in native resources and settlement, yet never to 
be our successful rivals, so long as they are contending with wastes and burden- 
some taxes incident to the saloon system. 

Eighty counties in the state, out of the total ninetjwiine, no more gild a sign of 
welcome to revel and debauch, but drive the illicit traffic into the filthy recesses of 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 289 



darkness, fixing the brand of infamy on abettors of law-breakers, and giving no 
escape for the guilty from fine or imprisonment save by perjury, or in the device of 
a change of court for delay. The number of grog shops has decreased by 500, and 
the number of arrests by thousands. A decrease in the consumption of whiskey 
and beer has been so marked that makers and vendors declare their business on the 
verge of ruin ; a confession which is an unwitting tribute to the eiificacy of a law 
enacted for a noble purpose, only requiring the support of courage and honest offi- 
cials for its vindication as beneficent to a people happy in exemption from taxes 
and vices cognate, which are the direct result of a free traffic or one honored and 
sanctioned by official license. 

"What is involved in the democratic demand for repeal ? 

A status of respectability for the liquor traffic, not enjoyed in Iowa for the last 
quarter of a century. Indifference to the warnings of the medical profession, which 
are prompted by a survey of humanity degraded by inebriation. A welcome and 
popular toleration of the public sale of beverages, now deprecated by the statesman 
of all lands as the most potent agency in enslaving the weak and Ijlunting moral 
sensibility for the commission of every offense in the calendar of crimes. It is the 
blunder of the time, early heaping shame upon the actors ; a proposal which rises 
to the rank of a science in debasing servility to the saloon. 

Let me be specific to be plain. Repeal makes no exception of community, 
county, city or town. The privilege is not asked as a favor, but as a birthright. 
The traditional yet satirical testimonials of good moral character must be waived. 
Hearing a petition would be a farce, like bonds for good behavior. The old 
demand for protection to society against despoilers is drowned in the cry and 
uproar for personal liberty. You reverse the shield which guarded the weak to 
emblazon state sovereignty and protection for an avocation outlawed. Henceforth 
drunkard-making shall be as legitimate an avocation and enjoy equal honor with 
mechanical trades and mercantile ventures. Is there any just plea for this new 
departure to enthrone and make universal that so long outlawed ? 

Where will the party look for company in its abasement? Is it to the states 
like Missouri or Georgia valiant in democracy? No, nor to New York or New 
England. Gallant Iowa must furnish the soldiers for retreat before the fumes of 
whiskey and frothy beer, and call for a dismount from political steeds, and a back- 
ward movement, lines broken and the picture of a crab engraven on our coat of 
arms. Such is the abandon of law-breakers and the mercenary; a reproach to 
civilization in a blunder neither early forgiven or to be forgotten by posterity. 

Is there no exception to this toleration and protection? Yes, it is found in 
two hundred and fifty dollars, or in one thousand dollars as the extreme cost of 
indulgence. This is no option, rather a command to every community — conquer 
your prejudices, repress conviction, waive local protection for your sons, down with 
majorities; relegate local government to political jugglery ; you may vacate your 
homo, rebel against the slaughter-house on the corner, biit the strolling vendor of 
drinks is guarded in his sovereign right to despoil. The flaming swords at the gate 
of Eden gleamed with the purpose of a God ; in a model state they are sheathed by 
a party edict for the protection of vice on the jiayment of money! I join in a wide 
opinion that this license fund is blood-money, taken from the poor wives and chil- 
dren of saloon victims who have brought gain to the vendor, and has no proper 
place in the city's bank, more than the silver pieces held by Judas, had in the 
Lord's treasui-y. So, too, the large sum cannot be weighed by a virtuous state in a 
balance against a wrong. It does not mitigate an offense, but gives a moral prop 
to the actor's respectability, to more effectually delude and debauch. Shall we be 
forced to drink this cup of degradation, and the clanking of our chains be the 
mockery of that social and political indej)endence for city and town, now our joy 



290 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

and pride ? I remember a parallel blunder by the same party, and from that grand 
historic issue let us gather strength and inspiration in this crisis. It was thirty 
years after the Missouri Compromise that the minions of slavery sought to break 
the compact and carry their crimes into Kansas. It is thirty years since the 
dominant party in loAva denied a saloon protection by common law, and now asks 
for it sovereign toleration and protection. Senator Douglas appeared with 
squatter sovereignty as a panacea, being the local option device of this political 
crisis, but it was as offensive to the slave power as option now is to vendors and 
political aspirants, demanding their feigned natural rights without question. It is 
history that theft of ballot boxes, fire and slaughter, could not stay the march of 
heroes for liberty, who were led in spirit by John Brown, and made Kansas for- 
ever free. The arrogant demand ruptured the party, brought derision to conserva- 
tive leaders, and left it in a disgraced minority, only after a quarter of a century 
to regain power by accident. 

That earlier meditated crime was against the colored race, to nationalize slav- 
ery ; this democratic device in Iowa imperils all races by license and by a confes- 
sion that a small minority may dictate a policy ; it declares that state sovereignty 
shall never be enforced for the suppression of wrong, and its only service is in 
ensuring toleration. The moral status of slavery in the nation is no better than 
that of the saloon in Iowa. Our fathers erected the national barriers, and they 
who removed the landmarks lost their cause. "We of a state, by argument, and 
standing on the shoulders of the pioneer fathers, made the saloon an outlaw like 
the burglar and polygamist, and this is the question — will we, proud of our schools 
and progress, firm in our convictions, tvirn back the hands on the dial plate of 
time, a sign to all the world of party servility and moral retrogression? 

Fellow citizens of Iowa, let me enforce the appeal which my voice forbids me 
to speak, based on the convictions and observations of thirty-one years' residence 
in the state ; a student of its progress and cognizant of what sobriety brings of 
thrift, safety and honor, to the farm, corporate affairs and the town. I entered 
public life twenty-nine years ago, the friend of democratic legislation now sought 
to be repealed with all supplementary enactments. Under the national war cloud, 
against my better judgment, I voted in the senate for the beer and wine clause 
exemption. It did not propitiate, rather was the occasion of the arrogant demands, 
never gaining audience imtil now, and to bo spurned by a people who prize their 
honor above the gains of greed and political success. The fear of the incendiary 
torch and assassin's blow prevents now the local enforcement of salutary law, and 
nothing can be gained by submission to a debasing demand that political effrontery 
proposes in no other state. You cannot quiet this horse-leech cry, give, give, no 
more than you can quiet the enraged wild beast, athirst for a victim, by a friendly 

Be not deluded, you who care for the altars of home and state honor, by the 
rebellion device in the " rural districts " against the platform. It will be impotent 
now in effecting reform, for it is too late to cast the purifying salt of opinion into 
the great convention fountain. Shackled by party you have no option in the 
current, more than the loose planks to stay the rush of waters, and your place will 
be that of driftwood in the eddies below. The democratic revolt against party 
made honored heroes in early days ; it embalmed their memories and left a rich 
heritage to their children. Such is the opportunity of patriots now ; it is the last 
recourse for the young voters imbibing the spirit of a higher civilization, who 
would care for the honor of their state and march in the bold vanguard rather than 
with expediency protestants in the rear. The plot cannot be concealed nor the 
issue be evaded. The supremacy of law means order and virtue for Iowa; repeal, 
the domination of all the elements of evil and the cohorts of crime. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 291 

THE IOWA CHURCHES. 

These, in a warfare against the saloon, have a most honorable 
record. On the adoption of the amendment of 1882 there were 
in the state two hundred and twenty Congregational clergymen, 
and of this number only one (and he afloat) was known in opposi- 
tion to the constitutional inhibition. Later there has been great 
unanimity in support of the party true to its pledges, which, 
joined to educational forces, will ensure a higher plane of action, 
rather than a surrender to the license system. "Moral support 
or legal sanction of the evil is wrong," is the watchword. The 
ladies' organization was both zealous and efficient, as, later, by non- 
partisan action it has been an auxiliary, and is full of promise for 
the future. 

The Methodist Church, equipped for pioneer advances, has ren- 
dered service worthy of praise and close imitation. She is richer, 
and the cause much stronger, for the life and fate of her martyred 
son in 1886, at Sioux City. That city, breathing the spirit of him 
who was assassinated, drove out the saloon, thus adding to the 
repute of her citizens, who have witnessed marked progress, mate- 
rial and social. A memorial service was held on tiie death of 
Kev. George C. Haddock, in most of our towns. At the meeting 
in Grinnell, which was large and sympathetic, this report was 
made of one of the speeches : 

Hon. J. B. Grinnell addressed the congregation briefly as follows : 

Fellow Citizens: 

Since the founding of our city we have not been called to such a service as 
this. By an heroic act in Christian devotion Rev. George C. Haddock wears the 
crown of martyrdom. He was field marshal leading the army of law and order in 
Sioux City, and on the 3d of August was shot down at the behest of cowards and 
criminal saloonists. Through the cycles of the ages he will stand unchallenged on 
the roll of the army of martyrs. He fell not in any brawl ; not provoking by a 
defiant word nor brandishing deadly weapons; but seeking to uphold the sover- 
eignty of the law in the interest of honor, peace and virtue. And night was the 
fit time for the assassin's deed, when the very clouds for shame obscured the light 
of the stars. In the calamities of the world there is often neither balm nor com- 
pensation ; not so in this tragedy. It is for us a bloody hiatus when the gallant 
soldier falls, and we of the rear rank are summoned to rise o'er the sainted form 
the easier to climb the battlements of the enemy and hasten for the cause a victori- 
ous shout. 

I have returned from spending days in Chicago at the trial of the murderous 
anarchists, to learn, as in Iowa, the saloon is anarchy and death. Let us press 



292 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

this ne-w count in the indictment of the saloon — assassination ! Let us hold up 
the priceless value of a courageous man ! Though he die, the red rain from his 
brave heart invigorates the prohibition tree, that can never die in our soil, but will 
be stronger in branch and richer in foliage for the blood which has flowed. High 
as Heaven is the prohibition martjT above our charities. He has gone with St. 
Stephen "v/hom they stoned". Christians expiring in flames; the slain in the 
valleys of Piedmont ; Lovejoy by the banks of the Mississippi ; and Lincoln at the 
national capital, all enrolled with the immortal. It is ours to take up and finish 
the work he began with new inspiration, whether the saloon calls few or many to 
seal their devotion with their lives. That God, who gave a convoy to his Elijah in 
a chariot of fire will care well for the fame and the souls of the martyrs, and it will 
be ours to care for the orphans and widow with a generosity reflecting gratitude 
and devotion, if we are akin to Pilgrims, Puritans, Covenanters and Huguenots, 
that have enriched so many fields with their blood. I know that we are coveting 
the mantle of the fallen. Let us by gifts and acts make him we have met to honor 
more eloquent in a bloody tragedy than possible in a long and courageous life. 



THE LAWS OF HEREDITY. 

A study of interest is the entail of vicious appetite. On a 
recent visit to my native town in Vermont, an investigation start- 
led me with facts to confirm the newer theories. I looked over 
the accounts of Deacon Solomon Brown — the merchant and Revo- 
lutionary soldier — which were kept between the years 1798 and 
1802. They comprise dealings with sixty patrons, charging flour, 
salt, tobacco, codfish, rum, etc., with near ten thousand items, and 
near three thousand for rum, by the gallon, pint or drink, and when 
quaffed with the luxury of sugar, an additional charge of two 
pence. 

Who were they ? Names to be remembered if not spoken. 
The records of that day point to the enslaved victims of appetite, 
poisoned in blood, enfeebled in purpose, by the cruel sorceries of 
rum. Their children no fathers loved more, but visited on them the 
Nemesis under the law of heredity impossible to flee from ; aye, 
the edict of a God visiting the habits of the fathers upon the chil- 
dren, "unto the third and fourth generation". You have seen the 
boy, the real son of his father, whose thirst for drink was no sur- 
prise, never divested of that fiery blood, which only a long absti- 
nence could cool. It leaped in the veins, mounted the cheek of the 
companions of my youth, and under strong temptation in convivial 
circles, our born noblemen became limp, irresolute, and bent the 
bow of life with timid, uncertain aim. The law of descent is insep- 
arable from success in rearing the brutes, as is the ideal of a God 
in perfecting a race in His image. What, then, of equal concern to 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 293 

those habits, the basis of hope for your children, or to mar with 
morbid appetites, crying, give! give! to slake a raging thirst; 
potent alike to lift from a gnlf of despair or nerve for unnatural 
criminal deeds. In nature we may give strength and character to 
the blood, as sun and air give fragrance and color to the rose. 
Thus I find the habits of the fathers often poisonous to the blood 
in my Iowa home, the witness of desperate struggles in reforma- 
tion; agonies to regain manhood lost on the swift currents sweep- 
ing on with hereditary taints. 

A REVENUE FROM WHISKEY. 

On this question of taxation, I think there is a popular misap- 
prehension. Increase in the cost of intoxicating drinks decreases 
consumption, especially with the middle classes of society. Hence 
a high revenue tax is in the interest of temperance, leaving out of 
discussion what fashionable usages and a vicious tliirst will com- 
mand. The tax becomes a restraint, yet not tainted with greed, 
nor does the law, as in liquor-licenses, involve the citizen as an 
accomplice or an abettor of crime. As an individual I am not con- 
scious of the least complicity with the whiskey dealer, because I 
vote for a law to make his occupation most costly, nor can the 
nation be called to an account that, by a wise apportionment of 
taxes, replenishes its treasury, while impotent to reform the 
vicious. Our state republican platform of 1888, I regarded as a 
blunder at least. It was on the theory tliat cheap intoxicants do 
not promote intemperance, and gave to our enemies a weapon for a 
deceptive use, rather than a legitimate argument used for the 
repression of evil by civilized nations. 

The following are excerpts from my speech in Congress in 
1864: 



I move to amend the amendment of the gentleman from Illinois, by increasing 
the tax to one dollar and twenty cents per gallon. 

The proposition which I now submit increases the tax twenty cents a gallon 
beyond the rate proposed by the gentleiiian from Illinois [Mr. Lovejoy.] Now, 
sir, I am sincere in this amendment. I think it ought to prevail, and I will not 
say that I think it ought to prevail upon the ground alone that we are to require 
a heavy tax for the purpose of carrying on this war ; not at all. I have nothing to 
say to propitiate the whiskey interest of this country, or the drinking interest of 
this country. I believe we owe it to ourselves to increase largely the tax upon this 
article which is vicious in its tendencies, and which is unnecessary. If, as sug- 



294 EEMINISCENC£:S OF FORTY YEARS. 



gested by the chairman of the committee of ways and means, men will have it, 
let them pay for it. 

I am willing that my party, if I have a party which is in the habit of drinking 
whiskey, shall pay a tax of three or five dollars a gallon for it, if they Avill drink it 
as a beverage. 

I can conceive very readily how natural it is for the gentleman over the way 
[Mr. Fernando Wood] to oppose this high tax upon whiskey. It may be true, as 
was asserted by an eminent subterranean democrat of the city of New York, whose 
name I cannot recall, it was so many years ago, that these corner groceries are the 
indispensable nurseries of democracy. [Laughter.] I do not stand here to dispute 
that assertion. I believe that the corner groceries of our cities are nurseries of 
democracy ; they are, at any rate, nurseries of a certain kind of democracy, and I 
would like to see them swept from the face of the earth. 

Then, sir, will the raising of this tax reduce the consumption of whiskey in the 
country? I believe it will reduce that consumption ; I believe, if you will levy a 
high tax upon whiskey, there will be a less consumption upon the part of the thou- 
sands and millions of the people of the country than is customary now. This belief 
will govern my vote upon this article, iii respect to the taxes we are to levy upon 
it, and apply to other articles which cannot be classed among those of absolute 
necessity. The consumption will be less in proportion as the tax is greater, 
because men cannot spare the money to purchase if the cost is high. The laboring 
people, who the gentleman from New York says drink whiskey, do it because they 
cannot procure the money to purchase brandy. They have not the money to buy 
brandy, and therefore they consume poisonous whiskey. And thus, if the cost of 
whiskey is increased the consumption will be less. 

The gentleman says that with a tax of two dollars and a half per gallon in 
Great Britain the consumption has increased. I do not think the tables so speak. 
I think those best qualified to speak in Great Britain are of the opinion that if the 
tax upon alcoholic liquors was made less the consumption would be greater than it 
is at the present time. 

There is another reason why I wish to have a high tax upon whiskey. In the 
midst of an precedentedly severe winter we find ourselves needing all the grain 
that can be furnished for the purpose of feeding our stock and supplying the army. 
If we stimulate the production of whiskey we shall not have corn enough left for 
feeding the stock in the western states. 1 would rather that the corn and rye 
should be used for stock than for the production of whiskey, and the people, I am 
sure, would rather gain than suffer thereby. AVe are informed now that there is a 
deficiency in the supply of the one article of corn of more than one hundred million 
bushels. What should we do as wise men, then, but reduce as far as possible the 
production of whiskey? If I had the power I would issue an order to prevent 
altogether distilation for drinking purposes. I would vote with any man that dur- 
ing this war not one bushel of corn or rye should be used for the manufacture of 
whiskey. There should be no more of that common, miserable stuff which has a 
name in my country that I will not repeat ; there should be no more of that dread- 
ful poison which is damaging so many of our soldiers and officers. 

****** 

I wish to do injustice to no one. I did not mention any name. If it be not 
true as I have stated, it still does not militate against the position which I assume, 
that whiskey has been of great injury to the service. It has been stated that high 
officers of the military department have been incapacitated from duty because of 
drunkenness. I can call not only the name of one, but of many who have informed 
me that such is the fact. This evil, then, is one which affects both officers and 
soldiers: and I would raise the tax upon whiskey, and of course the price, so high 



BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 295 

that it could not be brought within the reach of the soldiers. The government 
should supply their real wants. 

Yes, Mr. Chairman, I would not care if the constituents of the gentleman 
from New York [Mr. Fernando Wood] never obtained another drink of whiskey. 
[Laughter.] If that were to be the case, I think that we should soon have a 
political reformation in this district. [Laughter.] I would have his constituents, 
when they stretch their necks for a drink to-night, stretch them long, knowing 
that it would be their last villainous drink. It is true that a gentleman must 
make an argument for his own constituents, and that the gentleman from New 
York takes care of his. But I have no such friends to propitiate. I know that it 
was said liquor was poured out by the barrel against me in my district during the 
last election. Thank God, I have no desire to belong to a party that cannot come 
into power except upon a whiskey barrel. [Laughter.] I believe that when 
whiskey is abolished morals will flourish. We can do without it. All that we 
want is God and the flag and our glorious .soldiers. We carried the election in 
Iowa, where the gentleman from New York [Mr. Wood] did not choose to fill his 
appointments, against the hero of Fort Donelson by thirty-two thousand majority; 
he, unfortunately, having gone into the wrong pew. [Laughter.] 



The quiet of a retired life invites a recast of opinions. Time 
lias only intensified my conviction as to the duty of the state 
toward the tempted, and the victims of appetite. I have stood on 
the platform with the eloquent ISIarshall, and with Governor and 
Senator Yates, at the national meeting at Washington, entranced 
by their eloquence, and later have mourned their fall. IVIore than 
thirty of the most promising and noble-born of the citizens of our 
state, I have seen borne out with the fate of drunkards, to the 
bitter grief of their family and friends. The tornado strikes with 
most resistless force the tallest and broadest trees of the forest, 
with not greater fatality than, under a license system, the drink- 
ing usages have swept down the generous and high-born of our 
friends in a struggle with convivial habits and debased appetite. 

Prohibition in Iowa, with its unmeasured good, can never be 
treated as a failure. It reduced crime in the state in five years by 
one hundred per cent. It reduced the cost of criminal prosecu- 
tions for the same period seventy-five per cent. It reduced the 
state prison convicts by thirty per cent. The savings banks, in 
evidence of thrift, more than doubled their deposits in five years. 
School-houses and churches in the line of culture and moral prog- 
ress, increased fifteen per cent. It is thus a living question of 
to-day, shall blind conservatism and a debauched party bring con- 
fusion and defeat ? The early defenders of slavery, that twin of 
the saloon, are passing into the shadows of forgetfulness. In con- 
trast, the early and valiant champions of freedom have attained 



296 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

the high niches of just fame, and require no monument to perpetu- 
ate their memories ; and so it has been and will be with the apos- 
tles of temperance. 

For the wise treatment of our great vice there must be rudi- 
mental education, patient waiting and a cheerful toleration of 
opinions, while never offering a trace to the conservatism of com- 
promise or of silence, which is more dangerous than the blind fury 
or the blandishments of an open enemy. It will be no pastime to 
deal with a curse that brings sixty thousand men to their graves, 
annually, and marshals an army of drunkards outnumbering any 
army that ever a Grant or a Napoleon commanded. Was it the 
fancy of Dean Swift that "the royal arms of Lilliput were an angel 
lifting a lame beggar from the earth ? " Early may it be the fact 
that the American coat of arms represents the good Samaritan, 
linked in purpose with the majesty of the law-giver, rescuing the 
tempted from the despoiler. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Railroads — Personal Work — Central Railroad of lotva — Receiver- 
ship and Superintendence — Malicious Litigation — Vindication. 

A LABOR strike, obstructing travel and trade for a week, first 
directed my attention to the value of railroads. Celerity, safety in 
travel, and power to move the world's produce cheaply, is the prov- 
ince of our railways. 

Memory carries me back to the day when there was but one 
New England railway — that employed in freighting granite from 
quarry to dock, at Quincy, Mass.; and my first ride on a rail- 
road was given me by a showman in a ball-room on a miniature 
locomotive. 

A Vermonter laughed at the predictions that eventually we 
should ride on an iron rail at the rate of ten miles an hour. That 
prophet saw with a dim eye in the misty valley, not on the mount 
of far vision. He was in advance, however, of the Massachusetts 
committee of the state legislature, that reported in favor of a rail- 
road survey from Boston west to Newton, that town being as far 
west as the road would probably ever go. Eocky hills, mountains, 
deep valleys and streams, were the barriers of nature, and tavern 
keepers, raisers of horses and grain had no welcome at an early 
day for steam "to make their occupations and farms worthless". 
Now, one hundred and eighty thousand miles of railroad is not 
only the greatest material fact of the century, but one of the solu- 
tions of our mysterious progress, to which the capital and genius 
of countries boasting of the oldest civilization are awakening. 

The iron rail has achieved far more for the new West than for 
the older states. It has invited refined society where before pas- 
toral life was only congenial to a people with nomadic habits. It 
has rendered that expanse which before had only the value of a 
clear sky, the home of contented and prospered millions. It has 
determined the value of farms by proximity to a depot, and pro- 



298 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEABS. 

moted the social unity of the people, who have found easy and 
swift ways of travel. In the facilitation of exchanges of products 
and speed of locomotion, human life at every locality distant from 
seaboard, or crowded city, has been lengthened one half. The 
accomplishments at fifty years by the fathers are easier attained by 
their children at forty years. 

Land grants to aid in the construction of railroads through new 
states and territories, have furnished a prolific theme for shallow 
demagoguery. No party alone can have the blame or credit of a 
policy of which Stephen A. Douglas, a democratic idol, was the 
early champion. It was statesmanship to give treeless prairies 
value, and place a double price on alternate sections held for sale 
by the government. Eoads by tens of thousands of miles were 
secured early by aid of the land where this policy secured their 
construction. The alleged great gains of the companies with a 
land donation are, as a rule, mythical. They anticipated business 
and waited jesivs for population and profits. Local trade, and not 
long hauls through sparse settlements, furnished the secret of good 
dividends. Thus the lands became a necessity to secure an invest- 
ment, and there came a consideration and an approval of a device 
in high statesmanship rather than reprobation by pessimists. 
Government doubled the price, and one half was of value, where 
before all was worthless as a home. 

PERSONAL RELATIONS, 

I went to the New West in anticipation of railroads, to enjoy 
their benefits, but was caught in the fervor of a pioneer, and later 
in the currents of enterprise in construction. Between my home 
and Davenport, one hundred and twenty miles, and Iowa City, six- 
ty-five miles, the nearest terminus, I wasted years and vitality by 
nearly a hundred stage and hack trips to bring the Eock Island 
west. I made great efforts, and by Henry Farnam, the builder, 
was made a director, involving responsibility and trips to New 
York without pay. On going to Washington I resigned my place, 
but was never a party to passing our stock over to the Chicago 
Trunk Line at sixteen cents on the dollar ; and I kept the certifi- 
cates, which I would not place in the pool, costing me par, but 
now only valuable for a picture of the Mississippi river bridge and 
the autographs of two great men — A. C. Flogg, treasurer, and Gen. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 299 

John A. Dix, president, whose successors are also able railway 
managers. The policy of a thousand miles in extensions on the 
frontier invites discussion by the owners and managers, but is for- 
eign to my personal narrative. Our county gave aid in the sura of 
one hundred thousand dollars voted, and the stock could have once 
been sold for a good sum ; and but for a knowing attorney, now 
deceased, our debt could have been compromised so as to sa,ve over 
sixty thousand dollars. The voting aid was not then bad policy, 
but a wise act to secure the road, greatly enhancing the value of 
farms and building up towns. 

In 1S70 I ventured what money I had, and used my credit to 
its limit, in building a road from Albia to Knoxville, near to the 
great coal fields of Marion county. Later, by a breach of faith as 
to a tax at Albia, I changed my plan from Oskaloosa west in con- 
nection with the Chicago, Clinton, Iowa City and South-western — 
a rational, grand pioneer scheme which was set back by the finan- 
cial reverses of those who had invested their money previous to 
the Chicago fire of 1871. For five years I was the owner of miles 
of grading, piling and bridging, until I made a sale to Ex-Governor 
Merrill, who, after the road was built, conveyed all to the C. B. & 
Q. Railway Co. Even after the sale, my loss was many thousand 
dollars under a contract with a Chicago capitalist. My judgment 
in court against him on account and for franchise was $47,000, 
which I never sought to enforce by execution, his losses by the 
great fire were so great ; and I took off a burden which made it 
possible for him to rise. He did rise, but never to lessen my loss 
by the Chicago fire at near $50,000. 

By solicitation, I was engaged in securing a road from Clinton, 
down the Mississippi river to Muscatine, for the West. After 
spending money and time, want of local aid led to its abandonment, 
to be resumed later by a strong company. 

I hold the first share of stock issued to me as president of the 
Iowa City and English Valley Railroad. It was a scheme to reach 
the What Cheer coal mines, and, aided by Hon. Ezekiel Clarke, was 
full of promise, but it was clouded by a stringent money market, 
and I gave way, in want of courageous friends, to the B. C. R. & 
N. Railway, since completed to Montezuma. 

The Grinnell and Montezuma Railroad, of which I was presi- 
dent, was built under my contract. It kept the county-seat where 
the people were mainly liberal, and, despite the bad faith of a few, 



300 liEMINISUENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

did not bring the predicted losses. The sale was to the Iowa Cen- 
tral, which finds it a good feeder and not a local foe to its business. 

The Grinnell and State Center Railroad I secured by franchise, 
pecuniary aid and right of way, then passing all over to Ex-Gov- 
ernor Merrill and his brother, Mr. J. H. Merrill of Des Moines. 
It was a good local enterprise, of value to the people and a natural 
feeder to the Central, to which it was sold by the Merrill brothers, 
and brought gain rather than loss to all the parties. 

These five enterprises were of less concern, great as were their 
drafts on my credit and years of time, than 

THE CENTRAL IOWA RAILROAD. 

Few, if any, railroads in the country have had so checkered a 
history on the stock board, in the frictions which befell its man- 
agement, and in the sharp personalities of which it was the prolific 
occasion. It is my purpose to give its origin, mention its utility 
and management, omitting a vindication of my ofiicial service. 
That may be done by another, if at all, after a submission of facts 
is given. The inception of the road came by a demand for good 
coal found in southern Iowa, and for lumber cheap at the great 
market of Minneapolis. Central Iowa had little timber and as lit- 
tle coal, which now costs two dollars and a half a ton ; then costing 
from five to six dollars. Lumber rates were high, there being no 
competition, and building material was a necessity. 

As early as 1858 I was elected president of the chartered com- 
pany, to construct a line from Albia on the south to Mitchell near 
the Minnesota line, two hundred miles, in promise of connections 
with a line to St. Louis and to St. Paul. Oskaloosa, Grinnell and 
Toledo were among the points. This line was direct, natural and 
without deflection in its line ; on its merits it was a scheme that 
would have been not only a credit, but a source of profit to the 
builders. But the poor money of that time, low prices of farm 
products followed by the war, left the dirt grading to be overgrown 
by weeds. Under a new combination by Charles C. Gilman of 
Eldora, Iowa, the building of a road to reach the coal banks at 
Steamboat Eock from Ackley, there came to be a road via Mar- 
shalltown and Eldora, taking up the old project to reach the Oska- 
loosa coal banks. It was here that I could only count up the 
money used in surveys and time given for the old line, and I was 



BEMINISCENCES OF FOBTY YEARS. 301 

left to accept the place of a director, and to be one of a construc- 
tion company for the new project, under a bold leader and with 
capitalists as allies. The towns were liberal and enterprising, and, 
without depreciating any points, Grinnell gave all that was asked, 
some $80,000, for which stock was to be issued. 

My subscription was work in grading two miles of road, or cash 
f 5,000. Then I paid in cash $7,500 for construction stock that 
would have brought a good premium while work was going on. 
Iron was $70 a ton, against $30 now. Labor was high, and this, 
after the Chicago fire and the depression of 1873 and '74, was my 
personal financial relation in 1875: 

Cash paid out, $12,500; interest, $6,000. Market value of 
stock $1,500 ; leaving my loss at $17,000. 

The road had defaulted in its interest, and there were sharp 
recriminations and frictions, with legal devices for the control of 
the property, and the road, under a foreign superintendent, had 
lost in business and was reputed unsafe for transit, if the accidents 
and public rumor were any indication. Eival roads and coal com- 
panies and localities were fertile in expedients and loud in com- 
plaint before the United States Court, held by Judges John F. 
Dillon and J. M. Love. 

With neither of the judges had I ever held conversation as to 
the road, nor had we ever had any business relations to induce the 
selection of myself as receiver — leading, I regret to say, to an 
experience of the bitter and disgraceful attacks on the part of 
certain owners and employers, foiled in their schemes for personal 
aggrandizement, and resulting in the obstruction of a great trust, 
representing in stock and bonds from ten to twelve millions of 
dollars. 

It was at this stage that I received this telegram from Edward 
R. Mason, clerk of the United States Court: '< Judge Dillon wishes 
to see you officially at Des Moines, if you will come up to-day." I 
did not dream of his desire until in his presence, never having a 
thought but of my losses, and not of the management of the rail- 
road property. What follows would be without interest only as a 
key to my action, and related to the most bitter assaults and basest 
methods in regard to the court, trustee of bondholders, and myself 
as receiver. 

The following is the order and basis for large discretion 
exercised : 



302 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 



ORDER OF HOIST. JOHN F. DILLON, JUDGE OF U. S. COURT. 

Hon. J. B. Grinnell: 

For some time a suit has been pending in this court to foreclose mortgages 
against the Central Railroad Company o£ Iowa, amounting to six or seven million 
dollars. Owing to conflict of opinion among the different classes of bondholders 
of the same class, a final determination of the case was delayed until October last, 
when a decree of foreclosure was rendered, which it was supposed would be satis- 
factory to all parties. 

Bondholders to the amount of ^200,000 are dissatisfied with the decree, and a 
few days since the court allowed these parties to appeal to the Supreme Court of 
the United States on giving security in the sum of $1,000,000. This appeal will tie 
up the property for some time, and it is important to the public and to the parties 
in interest that it should, meanwhile, be administered with impartiality toward 
all, with economy and good judgment. No permanent receiver has ever been 
appointed. To prevent complications by reason of an apprehend appointment of a 
receiver by other jurisdictions after the suit was in this court, we of our own 
motion named Mr. Pickering, the superintendent of the company, as provisional 
receiver, and he has since acted in both capacities. 

If no apppeal had been taken no change would have been made in the receiver, 
as by the sale which was ordered, the property would have soon passed into the 
hands of the piirchasers or the new company organized by the trustees. As it is, 
the court feels that the responsibility for the proper administration of the property, 
pending the appeal, rests upon it, and we both think, in view of the peculiar cir- 
cumstances of the case, that it is better for all interests that the receiver and super- 
intendent should be diflferent persons, and this conclusion does not rest upon any 
doubt we have as to the capacity of Mr. Pickering, or as a result of any investiga- 
tion of the complaints made against his administration. The court has appointed 
you, of its own motion, in order to give assurance that the railroad will be judi- 
ciously and economically operated, and the rights of all the parties preserA'ed. The 
court desires the receiver to understand that he is the officer of the court, and 
expects him to administer the trust committed to him in the fullest confidence 
that we will sustain him in whatever he does that is right, whomsoever it may 
please or offend. 

The railroads in the hands of the court — and in the circuit there are eight or 
ten — have all been run with less expense and have made more money, than when 
they were operated by the companies ; and we hope and believe under your super- 
vision, that this road will prove no exception, and that the property will be worth 
more at the end of the litigation, two or three years hence, than it is now. Your 
attention is called to the report of the Hon. Hiram Price, special commissioner, on 
file, and you will proceed to carry out his recommendations as far as practicable, 
and you will make monthly detailed reports of all receipts and expenditures. 

This was on the 14th of January, 1876. Business was light, 
and over fifty thousand dollars due the employees, with a large 
demand for money to be expended on the road and to improve the 
rolling stock. The superintendent I retained until he sought to 
thwart my enterprise in sending ice, plenty in Iowa, to St. Louis 
where there was none. His criticisms I closed by a dismissal from 
service, and the ice trade resulted in a profit of $50,000- which 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 303 

money was used to quiet laborers who were becoming reckless. 
Full control I assumed with an address to the employees, reducing 
the number not employed on the track to thirty-seven persons. 

For Sunday work in the last month two hundred on the pay 
roll had received extra compensation. That I stopped by an order, 
and limiting Sunday service to an absolute necessity. The follow- 
ing was none too radical an order for the emergency : " Any person 
in the train service carrying intoxicating drinks stealthily for others, 
or any employee using the same, will be dismissed for this offense; 
also for the use of profane or ungentlemanly language to the 
patrons of the railroad." These were reductions and radical meth- 
ods from necessity, and to enforce a policy which brought by pub- 
lic admission great good. An order giving, by a new time table, 
to conductors the privilege of being with their families on Sunday, 
and prompt payment, secured the loyalty of my most trusted men. 

At this stage I made a plan for extensions to increase business, 
and Mr. Russell Sage, of New York, and his associates proposed to 
furnish the money and take the receiver's certificates. The scheme 
was for a few miles on the north to secure connection with a St. 
Paul line, and south-east to the "What Cheer" coal mines, a 
branch being graded to Grundy Center. Owners, Attorney Judge 
Grant and the court approved, but waiting for a court order there 
appeared a scurrilous attack on the parties, the court especially. 
Thereupon Judge Dillon declined to make any order or sanction, 
outside the narrow range of my service. This, by the opinion of 
owners and sagacious Iowa men, depreciated the property millions 
of dollars and invited what occurred — an occupancy of the terri- 
tory by rival companies. The Central was doomed then to be only 
a local road without power of self-assertion. 

To Mr. A. Eussell I committed details in operation of trains 
and the purchase of materials for restoring the road to a physical 
condition of safety. An outlay advised by Mr. Sage, equal to two 
hundred thousand dollars, was made. Spies and perjurers Avere 
numerous, with a purpose to blacken the administration, to restore 
those dismissed from service, and advance schemes of jobbery by 
combinations which later were developed with well-known adverse 
results. 

I forbear to give names of the Bohemian-writer inspirers in 
Iowa and circulators of ten thousand sheets, for they have either 
died, become demented, or been punished for unprofessional acts. 



304 EE^flNISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

The assaults upon the court were the basest, and the record of 
perversions appeared in a large pamphlet and a defense most hon- 
orable by the bar of Iowa. In private a non-resident party made 
no concealment of the oath he had taken to drive the judge from 
the bench in disgrace, little anticipating that he would show to the 
jurists of the country how spotless was the ermine of the assailed. 
An eminent judge in New York, Mr. Blatchford (since of the 
United States Supreme Court), reading the assaults, and in virtu- 
ous reprobation, came to inquire if that was not the judge to 
lecture as professor in the Columbia Law School of New York. 
There came a relief from the duties of a laborious circuit to a 
gentleman of scholarly tastes, securing fees as counsellor to able 
litigants and corporations. 

To Judge John F. Dillon that reviler brought the greatest ben- 
efits indirectly. Would the chief counsellor for the great railway 
magnate and the great corporations have made such advancement 
but for the notoriety brought by foiled cunning, by defamers and 
marplots ? Judge Love was loyal to his colleague and to duty as 
always, though not of the popular, dominant political faith of 
lowans, and has shone in his profession with the increasing luster 
of a gentleman and a jurist. Every year he has added to a long 
and brilliant career, now popular as a law professor in the State 
University, and as presiding district judge. 

I resigned as receiver after nearly three years of service. The 
debts were paid off, and two hundred thousand dollars extra above 
.ordinary outlay were expended on the track, besides the advancing 
of eighty-seven thousand dollars in operating expenses. For this 
there was commendation from the bench, and I turned over to 
my successor fifty-three thousand dollars. First mortgage bonds 
which were, at my appointment, on the market at thirty-two cents 
on the dollar had risen to seventy cents, and, on an upward rise 
of value, reached above par. 

The fatal stab at the property has been mentioned as incited 
by a quarrel for which I was not responsible, nor was I for a series 
of reverses in depreciation of securities, on which there was a good 
basis for their issue. The confidence in their appreciation under 
late combinations certainly related to faith in the property, and to 
confidence in the resources of our country and trust in the " good 
time coming ". 

In personal vindication I will not repeat the praises of railway 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 305 

patrons and commissioners, but only the official request of Judge 
James Grant, attorney for the trustees, asking for the discharge of 
my bondsmen: 

U. S. Circuit Court, District of Iowa. 

farmers' loan & TRUST CO. 

vs. 

CENTRAL R. K. OF IOWA. 

In asking for the confirmation of the report of the master and consenting for 
the plaintiff to the discharge of tlie hond of Mr. Grinnell as receiver, I think it 
my duty to him, and to the court, to say that I believe that iu the administration 
of his trust he has been sti-ictly honest and upright, and actuated solely by a desire 
to promote the welfare of the owners of the property. I believe that he has given 
to his duties in addition to his integrity, his utmost care. His ability has been 
devoted to the duties which he assumed when imposed upon him without his 
application. 

Upon his surrender of the property, I concur entirely in the opinion of the 
State Commissioners that he has very much improved the condition of the same, 
and he left in far superior condition to that in which he received it. 

JAS. GRANT, Solicitor for Plaintiff. 

A FINALITY. 

The attempt at blackmailing to which I was exposed by a greed 
for fees, and the motive of those foiled, and fallen in a pit dug for 
another, I need not detail. Yet, on a deliberate attack made on 
my accounts and loose threats to sue my bondsmen on my default, 
I met all with a demand for a trial on the merits. More for my 
vindication, I asked an increased compensation for double service 
as superintendent with that of receiver. Days were taken before 
the master in chancery. It was proven that more than one mill- 
ion, seven hundred thousand dollars had passed through my hands; 
that the per cent, in operating expenses had been lessened; the 
morals of the employees — numbering six hundred — had been 
improved; that since the repairs of the track and for a period of 
two years not a wheel had been ofE the rail on the main line ; and 
my compensation was increased above the sum fixed by Judge 
Dillon. 

This is found in the United States reports by Judges McCrary 
of Iowa and Greer of St. Paul. Here the case ended, but for an 
appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, costing the 
plaintiffs thousands of dollars, and serviceable only to the attorney 
and a gratification of the malice of a party not content with wreck- 
ing the property, yet persistent in burdening the court with a 



306 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

sham appeal. It was by the court's own motion that I served the 
corporation, and had been sustained in every branch of my adminis- 
tration. A good fortune I attribute to good maxims. The wheels 
must be kept moving; time was not to be made up on freight 
trains ; drinking intoxicants was not compatible with safety to 
property or persons. 

The finality was on my motion before the Supreme Court of the 
United States to dismiss the appeal at plaintiff's cost. The motion 
was granted by Chief Justice Morrison K. Waite. 

This opinion of a leading journalist was widely copied by the 
press : 

The Vindication Made Complete. The action taken by the United States 
Circuit Court at Des Moines, on Friday hist, in relation to the issue concerning the 
Central Railroad of Iowa, and particularly as to the connection of Judge Dillon 
therewith, must be everywhere accepted as completing the triumphant vindication 
of that honored judicial ofBcer from all the charges made against him by the Cate 
faction and their editorial abettors. From the bench, under all the liabilities and 
sanctions of his position as Judge of the United States District Court, sitting with 
Judge Dillon in the Circuit Court, Judge Love avowed his full co-ordinate respon- 
sibility for every decison rendered by Judge Dillon in relation to the Iowa Central 
and the litigation of its bond holders. Not content with thus avowing to all con- 
cerned, that if there had been any mal-administration of justice by the court, in 
any particular, in connection with the Central Railroad of Iowa, himself had been 
with Judge Dillon equally culpable. Judge Love cited attention to the records of 
the court, there and then open to the inspection of all, as directly contradicting all 
the charges and as thoroughly rebuking all the aspersions made concerning the 
acts of Judge Dillon in the premises. Nor was this all. The members of the Bar 
recognized the fact that they, too, had a duty to perform. They not only adopted 
a series of resolutions expressive of their sense of the outrage to the judiciary per- 
petrated in the libels uttered against Judge Dillon, but they took steps to at once 
arraign the authors of those libels before the tribunals of their country, for just 
condemnation and punishment. This action, if pressed forward to a legitimate 
conclusion, will, we may certainly hope, secure just the results now alone needed. 
Judge Dillon is fully exculpated from even the shadow of suspicion in any partic- 
ular. In his behalf not another word need be said. But the interests of justice and 
due regard for the honor of the judiciary, demand that the originators of the 
slanders against Judge Dillon and the United States Court be ferreted out and 
punished as they deserve. 

It is also worth while to observe, and with due particularity, the thoroughness 
of the vindication secured to Hon. J. B. Grinnell, the much maligned receiver of 
the Central Railroad of Iowa. The report made to the court on Friday, by the 
master appointed to make a thorough examination into the management of that 
road shows that Mr. Grinnell has not only honestly, but wisely and well, adminis- 
tered the entire charge committed to his hands. As an honored citizen of Iowa 
for a quarter of a century, Mr. Grinnell has won a reputation for sterling integrity 
which is now only made the more conspicuous by reason of the assaults upon his 
character, now shown to have been entirely groundless and unjustifiable. 



CHAPTEE XX. 

Agricultural Affairs — Wool- Growers' Association — National Dairy- 
men^s Fair — District Fair of 1859 — Fine Stock Breeders' 
Society — Commissioner on Pleuro-pneumonia among Cattle — 
State Horticultiira.l Society — American Agricultural Associa- 
tion — State Fair of 1890 — Arboriculture — Fences — Protective 
Tariff. 

THE IOWA wool-growers' ASSOCIATION. 

The formation of this society was stimulated by addresses and 
facts related to sheep husbandry. This was the argument — wool 
is high ; millions of acres covered with nutritious grasses are 
annually burned over ; the freighting of grain as a gross product, 
worth a cent a pound, is costly, while wool, worth fifty cents a 
pound, incurred but a small per cent, of its value in finding a 
market, besides stimulating the establishment of local woolen fac- 
tories. I led in this enterprise, profitable in Avar days. 

The sheep shearing festival at Grinnell, in 1865, was a notable 
event. There Avere competitors for premiums in shearing, and I 
was bantered to enter the list with shears, which I did. It was a 
dignified employment, not disturbed by the political correspondent, 
who reported that the honorable member of Congress was dipping 
sheep in tobacco juice. It was rather a compliment gained Avith- 
out cost, and the competitive sheep-shearer was the president of 
the State Wool GroAvers' Association. He was able to show Avon- 
derful blood in his flocks, and the largest and most valuable fleeces 
groAvn. The awards made are not material; the winners are dead, 
and most of the flocks have moved on westward, Avhere there is a 
daAvn of an interest which I had done all I could to promote by 
precept and by example, as the owner of as high as six thousand 
sheep, and the importer from other states of many times that 
number. 

Here may be introduced some compliments to the sheep, occa- 



308 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

sioned by my national prize essay. Dr. J. M. Shaffer, long the 
efficient secretary of the Iowa State Board of Agriculture, in his 
address on the subject, said, "The Hon. J. B. Grinnell, of Powe- 
shiek County, Iowa, has written an excellent treatise on ' Sheep on 
the Prairies', which may be consulted with profit by every man 
that owns a sheep in the north-west. Being a practical wool- 
grower, his instructions are of incalculable benefit. He does not 
indulge in fanciful speculations, but details experiences, summons 
figures, and makes deductions which a wayfaring man need not 
misunderstand." 

. In recognition of service and study connected with this indus- 
try, I was appointed special commissioner to classify wools, in the 
'New York Custom House. It may be added here that, after the 
fall in the price of wools, I released all my renters from their con- 
tracts, which, if enforced, would have realized large sums. 

At the sheep-shearing festival above mentioned, a poem was 
given by Prof. H. W. Parker, of the college — an apt effusion of a 
genius, applauded by the crowd. It was as follows : 

POEM ON THE SHEEP. 

My merciless friend, our worthy M. C, 
Has assigned a few rhymes on sheep to me, 
Which, for obvious reasons — name and pluck — 
Had better been laid on our neighbor B — k. 
Of him, without doubt, my friend was shy 
From fear of some ifs and butts in rejily — 
So called for my Pegasus, formerly gay, 
Now quite too steady to ever say neigh. 

Thou muse — who erst on Arcadian hills 
Breathed through the pastoral pipe in trills 
That drew the flock, or in later time 
Inspired sweet Maro's bucolic rhyme 
(I mean rhythm) — with thine my spirit steep, 
Who fain would sing of the innocent sheep. 

All ages past have sounded their praise ; 
What more can we do than to echo the lays ? 
What note of discordance Avas ever heard — 
What but a single unfortunate word — 
The epithet "sheepish" — and that is a slur 
That rightly belongs to the villainous cur — 
The shepherd's pest, the world's disgrace, 
The dog, with conscious shame in his face, 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

Slinking away from his bloody feast. 
Av/ay with the treacherous cowardly beast! 
Hound, spaniel, terrier, mastiff and all. 
I would that our nation's powder and ball, 
Not needed to free us from something worse, 
Might be spent to remove our canine curse, 
Except, of course, the shepherd's help 
"Which is never a sly and scoundrel whelp. 

There was another opprobrious phrase — 
" Woolly-head " — uttered in by -gone days 
When men were counted no better than sheep ; 
We will not revive it, but let it sleep. 
Yet, one little truth the people should heed — 
That black was no doubt the original breed; 
And the dusky lamb but reverts to the type 
Whence came our fine flocks of every stripe ; 
And even the Merino's wool is known 
To change to hair in a foreign zone. 



Ah ! gentle muse ! this doggerel strain 
Wakes not the soft melody of old again. 
Can'st not discourse of the Golden Fleece 
Which led afar a brave youth of Greece, 
The world-famed Jason ? No song of the flock 
But must have that for its capital stock. 
Say, who was Jason ? What was the prize 
That shone at last to his wishful eyes? 
And where did he roam in his valiant quest? 
Where wandered save here in the glorious West? 



For here is the Eden of pasture ground, 
The broadest and richest that man has found; 
And here the gi-ass shall turn to gold, 
And be in full fleece together rolled ; 
Here in the land of the setting sun. 
Each fleecy cloud, when the day is done. 
Is a glowing sign of our wealth's increase. 
And marks the home of the Golden Fleece, 



Then down with the lordship of cotton and oil, 

And down with shoddy and ill-gotten spoil! 

And long live the true nobility of wool. 

Its escutcheon adorned with the shearing tool ; 

And long live the sheep with his precious fleec( 

The emblem of innocence, wealth and peace — 

The symbol, still more, of a higher life. 

In a world where crime is unknown, and strife; 

There in green fields the Good Shepherd leads 

The Flock that on heavenly pasture feeds. 



309 



310 REMINISCENCES OF FOliTY TEARS. 



THE NATIONAL DAIRYMEN'S FAIR. 

This was held at the American Institute, New York, in 1879. 
It developed into a proud day for Iowa in taking prizes for cream- 
ery butter. The following are outlines from the J^ew York Trib- 
une, of my impromptu speech, which was commended by the 
agricultural press. It was intended as at once a blow at the bogus 
article, oleomargarine, and in praise of Iowa products and men : 

I regret that on so short a notice you have called me to stand in the place of 
Mr. Evarts, the distinguished secretary of state. But I am not vain enough to 
attempt to fill his place. It would have detracted nothing from the fame of the 
learned cabinet officer had he advised you of his ability to maintain his Vermont 
farm by the aid of his salary. Many diplomats and quasi farmers have even failed 
to prove Ben. Franklin's maxim: " He that by the plow would thrive, must either 
hold or drive." Theorists, however, have made able contributions to rural litera- 
ture, and have in life's evening gladly hied away to the farm to find pleasures 
denied a public servant, thus following the example of the historic sage and 
ploughman. 

The first impression here no orator can describe in speech. It is dark night 
without, and you could only learn it by consulting your watch, for these electric 
lights as a modern wonder outshine the sun at mid-day, showing plainly the apex 
of the cheese obelisk, though forty feet high, and the longest "Dairy-maid's 
needle" ever pointed heavenward. The textui-e of the butter is seen without a 
microscope, to give conjecture how exquisite must be its taste, and the girls in 
attention to their little industries connected with the rural arts, have not spilled 
the milk which the old spelling book pictured, on the ground, blasting the hopes 
of the dairymaid ; they are happy. Necromancer, as farmer, with churn and curd, 
plies his trade with more than the skill of an amateur. All the kine are glossy in 
this magic gleam, and the water jetting and music can only briefly cease their flow 
for the prose of speech. 

The learner here passes from theory to accomplishment, seeing the best of one 
of our great industries from many states — a farmer's college with short sessions 
and enthusiastic professors taking you to the original sources ; the very cows of 
most approved grades, and genteel manners, are proof that kindness conquers all. 

It is common in this too suspecting world to ascribe sordid or bad motives to 
good acts, and lest I forget it let me now say, they who furnish rational entertain- 
ment are public benefactors. So I would have remembered the inaugurators of 
this Fair, and their generous premiums, and entertainments, bringing our rural 
people near the commercial heart of the nation. 

You ask little of us in the far West, but Col. R. M. Littler, of my state, needs 
no introduction as a gentleman of genius and enterprise, acting as an officer and 
orator, as a pastime. He is worth an army of philo.sophic dreamers, whom Emer- 
son describes, " Biting their thumbs in the morning to find whether they were in 
the me or the not-me world"; and our other representatives from Iowa are the 
exhibitors who have taken the premiums. I have wired the press of my state that 
they are of the first, and a round dozen in number and in value, far more than of 
any other state, " Excelsior" New York not excepted. It is my fortune to control 
that sweepstakes butter package made by John Stewart, of Anamosa, Iowa, whom 
you have just cheered, and here it will be eaten with an epicurean smack, saj-ing, 
" I know what is what, I know on which side my bread is buttered ". It will be 



REMINISCENCES OF FOBTY YEARS. 311 



found genuine, a rich conscription from our soil, wliere tlie "patlis drop fatness", 
growing nutritious grasses, and the corn wliich imparts flavor and richness to the 
fluid by the kine, whicli tidy hands and practiced labor and skill bring to your 
senses as the coveted golden creamery product — the gild of our commonest food, 
bread the staff of life. Competitors, courageous and honorable, though defeated, 
know these excellencies ai-e not of chance ; pains and gains are usually brothers. 
The West may have learned neatness through Eastern lineage, also to labor for an 
end. Then a proper temperature is a necessity, and salt the purest, but, whether 
in limestone or sandstone district, ample corn food will impart a rich color, flavor 
and substance, which is wanting where this cereal is unused as food. 

So say the experts, and there is a promise that our Iowa, raising one-seventh of 
all the corn in the nation, will not be left out. She has a welcome for dairymen, 
now on lean soils, and with leaner kine, to settle on her ample area in the dairy- 
man's paradise — the Mississippi valley, where are cheap lands, ample grasses apd 
grains, a healthful home for the valued animal races, and the coveted conditions 
for even better qualities and larger quantities. 

Oleomargarine, the bogus article, claims a word. I hear, as now shown and 
tasted, that it will glut the butter market. No doubt it is an ingenious counter- 
feit, and that by admixtures and chemical science it may challenge detection, for 
it is a divine prediction that the time will come when the false will possibly 
"deceive the very elect". Good citizens are engaged in the fabrication. Yes, 
Brutus is " an honorable man ", but the impression depends on the accent. Good 
food-maker, he may be of a class ; not so of his imitators, and the dealers ; they will 
be tempted above what they are able to bear ; and only a law against the bogus, or 
the aid of experts, will be able to separate the precious from the vile. Then there 
will be less used of the genuine. An immemoi-ial confidence in that which was 
called butter will give way to distrust, and a gentleman must use well his olfacto- 
ries and palate, or call in an expert, before he seats his table guests, in fear of 
imposition, or that his steward is in corrupt league with the grocer. 

I am asked, "Why decry without knowledge ? " Who wants a substitute for the 
traditional articles distilled by natural processes, like the pure water by the clouds 
— heaven's distilleries. The name means nothing. May you never learn to pro- 
nounce it. It is not found in dictionaries, and the first of linguistic scholars can 
only affirm Ole is for oil, margarine may be suet, lard, or a conglomoration from 
every kingdom in nature — a counterfeit tolerated never by refined sensibilities, 
where the unadulterated creamery in the realm of table food has no rival luxury. 
Our delicious, flavored coffee is no more sipped as the " nectar of the Gods ", when 
ground with peas, and tinctured with chicory. No longer is he deemed a well- 
dressed gentleman in shoddy, which is but worn picked rags, the counterfeit of 
strong wool. True, sordid contractors framed excuses in giving good enough for the 
price in time of war, but the apothecary adulterating drugs, and the butter-maker 
counterfeiting, to cheapen, by Ole and margarine mixtures are the enemies of hon- 
est makers and legitimate trade, and with all their professions of honor they invite 
the execrations heaped on the shallow hypocrite of the early time, shouting, " Tom, 
have you watered the rum?" "Yes sir." "Sanded the sugar?" "Yes sir." 
" Then turn the key and come to prayers." I forbear. These skillful attempts in 
covmterfeiting only prove the value of the genuine. 

The farmer feeds all, and competitive fairs like this stimulate the production 
of those articles which bring national wealth and the balance of trade. We are 
illustrating what can be done by industry and skill, on a scale which will be a fur- 
ther astonishment to the older nations. No people in this century have added so 
much pel' capita to their wealth as ours in this eventful '79, and contributing most 
to it has been the economy and industry of the farmers. 



312 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

DISTRICT FAIR. 

The great district fair at Cedar Falls, in 1859, brought out the 
following address, the first I ventured upon, of that class printed 
and circulated by order of the state in a volume : 

" The first three men of the world were — a gardener, a plough- 
man and a grazier; and these vocations were not of choice, but 
were themselves the symbols of honor, and suggestive of man's 
necessities. The ploughman became a murderer, and the man was 
marked with the brand of enduring infamy ; but his vocation has 
become more honorable, from the day Ceres instructed Triptolemus, 
and gave him her chariot that he might travel over the world and 
give instructions in agriculture to a rude people, who, until then, 
had lived upon acorns and the roots of the earth. The old Roman 
Cincinnatus, who laid by the sceptre of power for the plow, though 
finding but few imitators, is associated with the brave Putnam, 
who left his plow in the furrow at the call of his country, and that 
model farmer, *the father of his country', refusing a crown that 
he might enjoy the quiet of home and that profession which his 
example almost canonizes. 

"Rude agricultural life had its attractions and privileges, but 
for us there are substantial benefits, advantages and acquirements, 
in the legacies of experience and tlie contributions of science, 
which the enthusiasts of earlier days did not, in their wildest 
reveries, dream of as the heritage of later generations. 

" Utility should not yield to ornament ; of this there does not 
seem to be immediate danger. Passing most of our farms, you 
would judge there was only a rage for wide fields, and large wheat 
and corn crops. The farm, the house and surroundings, seem to 
furnish evidence of a lack of those efforts which would cause the 
home to be parted with in regret. Noble trees are felled when 
they should have stood as ornaments ; the prairie is as naked as in 
nature ; root crops, because they can be eaten, usurp the place of 
fragrant flowers in yard and garden. The house is as innocent of 
paint as mother Eve was of roufje or silks. Random shooting and 
juvenile sportsmen drive away every bird that comes to build its 
nest in proximity to the home, promising morning music gratis. 
Plant trees, cultivate flowers, and make the birds 'so brimfull of 
gladness and love ', at home ! The trees will soon shelter yourself 
and dwelling, and in evening murmur forth the music of friends ; 



BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 313 

and when the pioneer and roaming spirit burns in the bones, the 
graceful trees, clustering vines reared by your own hand, caroling 
birds at the window, and the music of ' sweet home ' within, will 
exorcise the spirits which picture a paradise in some distant 
Nebraska or Utah, and banish those enemies and demons of unrest 
which demonstrate so often in our state, that 'three moves are as 
bad as a fire '. Home attractions will secure permanency of abode ; 
and the children will sigh for no other home, finding contentment 
where a church, school and elevating associations are found. 

"The simple roller and the drill can nowhere be used with such 
satisfactory results, as on the loose soil of the prairies. We owe a 
debt of gratitude to the inventors of numerous reapers and mow- 
ers, which later generations will more fitly express than we who 
are yet gazing with delight upon their almost magical achieve- 
ments. The harvest song is yet unwritten which is fit to be 
re-echoed to the music of a*reaper, which makes a mock of acres, 
causing the farmer's long days of drudgery, in gathering grain, to 
be changed into a brief pastime. 

"Those wind-mills which harness the air, dispensing witli an 
engine, while they send to the surface the flowing, perpetual 
springs, and furnish motive power to flour our wheat, are quite 
sure to become favorites on our prairies, where ^olus of the winds 
may continue his reign, never out of season, more prized for utility 
than the bland air of the morning for pleasure. 

"The lords of creation are not alone in the appropriation of 
inventions. Sweeter than parlor music to mothers and daughters, 
on whom the monotony and toil of pioneer life falls heaviest, is 
the merry click of the sewing machines. Such blessings they 
dispense, giving to the fair of our households time for relaxation 
and mental culture. Let the machine, beside the piano, indicate 
woman's emancipation. 

It becomes a duty to seek a broad and liberal culture and create 
a sentiment which will dignify labor. Our schools must be cher- 
ished, and that great principle that property should educate our 
youth. The power of a people lies in its mind ; their forces Avill 
be proportioned to proper cultivation. No brave of the Indian 
race has been an inventor. The barbarian or semi-civilized have 
not added to our stock of ideas during this century. I deem it a 
more practical work to adorn and build school-houses, than to sing 
peans to our union. A people with generous culture will be fore- 



314 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

warned of danger to their institutions, and strike at the evils which 
threaten, rather than be thrown into a frenzy by passionate and 
mercenary appeals. It is not enough to be the equal of those 
whom we have left of the brotherhood in the older states. We 
are moulding institutions, rather than founding where there are 
none; and there should be such that 'heaven will look down to 
see'. 

"All about us are the emigrant races, expecting to do more for 
their country and themselves, in a brief lifetime, than is achieved 
in the staid communities where men die full of years, un subjected 
to our excitements and trials. A change of the tree from a sterile 
soil to ours rich and deep, imj)lies improvement; and ought not 
intelligence to be advanced, insuring power in every right direc- 
tion, standing on these summits of opportunity in this 'promised 
land'? I know that school-houses have not as a rule been superior 
to barns for the brute, in architectural faste and comfort, and that 
labor is called menial service. But productive labor is esteemed 
honorable where a community is aroused to the worth of practical 
education for man with his varied wants; and proper, attractive 
school-houses and institutions of learning, are soon to supplant 
those which are a burlesque on our vaunted progress. And still 
it is for the people to demand. 

" The governments of the old world are more liberal patrons of 
agriculture than ours; yet $1,000,000 is not a large appropriation 
for a city custom house, and tens of millions annually hardly suffice 
for the army and navy — those 'horse-leeches' of the treasury. It 
becomes a duty to create a public sentiment which will not allow 
the agricultural and mechanical interests of our people to be over- 
looked at Washington. Diffuse intelligence in regard to our 
Farmer's College, that it may be tested and become, what it may 
become, a boon to us and our children." 

lOWA FINE STOCK BKEEDEb's ASSOCIATION. 

With this I was associated, as donor, speaker and president. 
The state prints officially its proceedings ; cities are clamorous to 
entertain by banquet and honors the first gentlemen of the state, 
who have brought renown and assistance to the vocation of our 
farmers. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 315 

Of one of the meetings of the association, my reminiscences are 
assisted by the following extract from the report published : 



Mr. Grinnell, inclined as he is to always look on the sunny side of this world's 
life, had jjrepared a paper on, " The Bright Side ", and attention was given it at 
this time. It was too long for use in full in these columns, but the " cold facts", 
on which the eloquent enthusiasm of the paper was founded are herewith appended : 

" 1 have no purpose to explain the cause of the present stagnation and bad 
market, nor to mention the omens of a brighter day for our animal industry, but I 
shall by the mention of certain facts seek to prove that we have greater occasion 
for good cheer than for despondency. First I notice the favoring conditions : The 
debtor class is found in the enterprising West, and money was obtained by the 
borrower on the surety of farm and stock at a very much higher rate fifteen and 
twenty years ago than now. Necessary haying, harvesting and cultivating machin- 
ery was bought years ago at fifty per cent, higher rates than now. Staple fencing, 
which is barbed wire, cost more at the factory by one hundred and fifty per cent, 
twelve and fifteen years ago than now. Necessary clothing cost more by fifty per 
cent, fifteen and twenty years ago. Heavy wagons now at sixty dollars, horse shoes 
at sixty cents for a span of horses, and steel nails at three cents per pound by the 
keg, cost fifty to seventy-five per cent, more fifteen years ago than now. Articles 
common to the farmer's table — salt, sugar, tea and coffee — cost more by from 
thirty to fifty per cent., the average quotations, for the last fifteen years, than now. 
Transportation rates on railways are reduced on the average allowed granger tariff 
in 1870 and 1871 from two cents and a fraction to one and a fraction per ton per 
mile in 1884, showing that the maximum rate was ninety-four per cent, higher than 
the present. This mention does not imply that stock rates to Chicago are not now 
burdensomely high. On interstate freight originating in Iowa, live stock and the 
like, finding a market at the seaboard, the charges fourteen years ago were greater 
by ninety-five per cent, than those of 1885. Second, the discoveries of the last fif- 
teen and twenty years have materially reduced the cost of raising animals. Our 
grass crop is heavier by the mixture of many varieties on the same soil — instead 
of one, six — thus adapting our jtastures to extreme seasons and to the epicurean 
tastes of the animals. Another is the greater profits found in the early maturity of 
bovines and swine for the shambles. Third, the possibility of protection by timber 
belts and artificial groves is a discovery which tempers the cold for safer and more 
profitable animal development. Arboriculture at Mason City brings equal com- 
fort with natural woody shelter at Ottumwa, thus extending the area of animal 
husbandry by millions of acres and adding to their value millions of dollars. 
Fourth, the late practical inhibition of the saloon in our rural districts has secured 
better and more faithful service with less risk to the flock. To the keepers of herd 
and the stud, inebriation meant imminent danger and often gross neglect with 
great losses. I forbear a further mention of substantial facts and pleasing dis- 
coveries. . . . The animal industry is not alone depressed, and what vocation 
gives fairer promise? The conditions of the equine industry are fair, and returns 
for improved stock remunerative. Are there ills in our industry ? ' Rather bear 
the ills we have than fly to those we know not of '. Has the wheat-grower of the 
North or by the Pacific found a bonanza or independence at fifty cents a bushel? 
But the ranges! There is the bovine paradise, and the refuge for the poor and 
desponding herdsman! Alas! that overcrowding has killed the native grasses; 
that strife for occupation of springs and sheltered valleys has bred hatred and 
violence. Brave early pioneers have realized fortunes in nomadic life on a rising 
cattle market, but in this day of depression, the want of care, close feeding of 



316 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

grass, drifting before storms, and the cost of 'round-ups', not only have cut off 
the profits of earlier days, but brought humanity to face suffering and losses which 
appall. . . . Fellow-farmers, look up ! The clouds are breaking. The care of 
a granger, the courage of a patriot, and the pluck of a man will early win success 
for our animal industry." 

Discussion was general on this paper, the optimistic views expressed by Mr. 
Grinnell not meeting with a great deal of favor at the hands of those who spoke. 
Indeed, while the facts as stated were admitted to be substantially correct, there 
was such a recital of grievances suffered by the farming community that one might 
almost imagine it to be an echo of the mutterings of discontent at the existing 
state of affairs heard at meetings of a certain class confined chiefly to large cities. 
The attempt was made to figure out what became of the difference between the 
selling price of the raw material as produced by the farmer, and the cost price of 
the finished product as laid before him for purchase. In the case of wheat and 
flour, one or two expert mathematicians figured out clearly that the miller was the 
man who was absorbing these large margins, which brought two millers to their 
feet, and, amid considerable amusement, with hands on their pocket-books, they 
solemnly declared that the large profits spoken of were not there, and with com- 
plete unanimity shifted the charge from their shoulders to the middleman, who 
sells the flour. Here it was finally left, probably because none of those much- 
abused middlemen were present to defend thenxselves. 

As president of the Fine Stock Breeder's Association of Iowa, 
I liad reasonable pride in the fact that a needful gift, and the cheer 
of speech, lifted the society from a rut up to the front rank. It 
enlists the best writers, talkers and active stock raisers. The state 
publishes its annual proceedings, even the banquet speeches, and 
the reports are in great demand. This is gratifying to me as the 
one who brought the first Devon to this state, and introduced the 
Normans and Clydes, the highest prized of stock in the state. 

AN UNSOUGHT NATIONAL COMPLIMENT. 

It was by the representatives of tAventy states, meeting in 
1884, and presided over by United States Senator Williams of 
Kentucky. There was feverish anxiety in regard to the pleuro- 
pneumonia among cattle, threatening a thousand millions of prop- 
erty, and making a demand for national legislation. 

Who should conduct the committee and secure the passage of a 
bill in the crisis ? I was not in the convention to decline the first 
of all compliments by my countrymen. It involved a bill, which 
provided a commission and an appropriation of a hundred thousand 
dollars. To it I gave months of time in Washington, and many 
expenses from my own purse. Oh, what delays and vexations! 
But I was permitted to serve our great industry still further by a 
complimentary appointment from the commissioner of agriculture, 



REMINISCENCES OF FOIiTY YEARS. 317 

to the first position of honor and responsibility and of Western 
observation, held with pleasure up to the time of Cleveland, when 
I resigned. The action taken and the reports made, from time to 
time, in fulfillment of this important trust, are on record and need 
not be repeated here. 

THE STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 

To the proceedings of this society I refer for contributions on 
topics related to its aims, especially certain essays on tree-culture 
and fence-economy, which were widely copied. East and West, as 
taking advanced positions on these subjects. Not professing to be 
an expert in fruit-culture, I can claim to have been the first to sup- 
ply my vicinity with abundance of apple-seeds and laboriously 
grafted stock, as already mentioned. The first whose name appears 
on the role of the Iowa society's life-members, as president I was 
fortunate in securing for Iowa the gold medal for the best apples 
exhibited by the national society at its Richmond meeting. Mark 
Miller, as secretary of our association, was fitted out to make the 
collection from our fruit-growers, and it cost me less than two hun- 
dred dollars, while the result was worth many thousands of dol- 
lars in advertising our state. 

In this connection, I cannot omit a deserved tribute to our 
devoted and eminent horticulturist, the late Suel Foster, of Mus- 
catine, as published by me at the time of his death : 

Truly one of our historic personages has fallen, worn with dutiful toil and 
crowned with honor. Before the advent of railways, heat, nor cold, nor storms, 
deterred him from long journeys where the trees, flowers, farm, education, moral- 
ity and religion were to he discussed, and plans laid for the advancement of the 
state and the weal of our race. He lahored with enthusiasm for the Agricultural 
College as an officer; made fruit-growing and tree-planting an honored vocation 
by his writings, example, and his broad views as president of the State Horticul- 
tural Society; a lecturer without pay; a critic of shams in fearless exposure; in 
feeling, a radical democrat save in politics. He won the favor of true gentlemen 
in the ranks of advanced science and progressive thought. 

As an early writer, I associate him with the lamented Governor Grimes, Mark 
Miller and others, and even their superior in originality and practical results at 
his beautiful home ; with national association as the champion of the Wealthy 
apple and the vigorous, beautiful Catalpa ; commemorated by ten thousand fields 
which may sing his praises by the soft breezes in the branches of the arboreal 
blessings he above all others has brought to our state. 

1 cannot say he made no mistakes ; that can without praise be said of those 
who attempt little, but his forecast as a citizen, patriotic ardor and generous emo- 
tion, flowing from his pen, and gems of wit and thought in conventions, would, 



318 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

gathered in a volume, be liistoric. He was an enthusiastic scientist; one bold to 
lead where others were asked to follow. 

THE AMERICAN AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 

At the New Orleans meeting in 18-85, I received an unexpected 
election to the presidency at this association. It was promotion 
from vice-president and director. The following resolves were 
passed, which great losses on the ranges have proven timely, if 
unheeded by the government. In introducing these resolutions, I 
said: 



We are owners of not less than 500,000,000 acres of pastoral, non-agricultural 
lands, being in Colorado and Nevada and the Territories of Montana, Idaho, Utah, 
New Mexico, Wyoming and Arizona. Want of water invites reservoirs, irrigation 
and windmills, to aid in the support of 5,000,000 of people instead of 1,000,000, and 
20,000,000 of cattle instead of 5,000,000. The friction of the small herdsmen and 
large owners under a grasping spirit, occasions bad blood, violence, loss to both 
parties, and a border warfare to be more dreaded in the crowding, which involves 
loss to both parties. 

This domain invites skill and capital in the application of water. Thirst pro- 
motes fever, followed by death. The want of irrigation, and of prepared food, like 
the Alfalfa, for days of storms, bring great losses, wliile the dry storm cures the 
grasses for rich food, to be of more value than the pampas grasses rising in the 
moisture of South America or the verdure on the steppes of Russia, longer covered 
by winter snows. 

The pioneer, with few cattle, by the end of winter is eaten out, or his herd 
swept with the thousands before the storms. Large corporations, without title or 
lease, fail to make homes, shelters, or to economize, or raise the water for herds. 
They could afford to pay a lease of a few cents an acre. Good society and social 
order are involved in an apportionment of these lands by natural divisions and 
value as to water, shelter and grasses. The rights of pioneers and pre-emptors may 
be of value imder a lease of lands not worth government price. 

A revenue of millions may be raised, giving the herdsmen a better profit by 
assured possession. Humanity that regards the brute invites care and new meth- 
ods. An area larger than the old thirteen states invites statesmanship and a 
liberal system of leasing, in which every beef-eater and good citizen has an 
interest. 

I move the following resolution, [which was adopted after considerable 
discussion] : 

Whereas, the national cattle ranges of the country not adapted to agriculture, 
occupied by pioneers, pre-emptors and cattle comi^anies, are held under conflicting 
interests, which are a bar to permanent improvements and the proper division of 
the water and soil, involving loss to both parties; therefore 

Resolved, That these lands should be held as a national trust under law and 
order, and that, with a just supervision by a board of commissioners elected by 
state or territory, a leasing system may be established of tracts in natural divisions 
for limited periods to favor development and prevent the friction of interests and 
monopoly. 



BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 319 

STATE FAIR, 1890. 

From thirty thousand to thirty-five thousand persons, one day, 
were in attendance. It may be my last speech on such an occa- 
sion, and I may therefore be permitted to quote from the State 
Register's report : 

Mr. Grinnell's remarks were the bit of sentiment that added beauty to the 
exercises. He said it was the thirteentli annual fair he had attended in Iowa. 
He liad liardly expected to attend this one, hut lie thanked providence for the 
privilege. He made some touching remarks in regard to the connection of Father 
Clarkson with the agricultural society, saying : 

" After nearly five months of sickness, I can, with sensations of sadness, cast a 
laurel sprig on the yet unsodded grave of the lamented Father Clarkson, whom a 
year ago we greeted with applause. Fittingly have President Hayes and Judge 
Wright paid a tribute to our exemplary farmer, our ablest writer, fearless critic 
and educator by the press for a fourth of a century. Time will only add luster to 
his character, so conspicuous in devotion to his state and the weal of his race, by 
an illustrious example of manhood and religious trust. Without partiality and 
with just pride, even with gratitude, I can speak of our state society, the people's 
college, in its progress, for this (too often a speaker) is my thirtieth visit on the 
grounds. What changes! In early days few exhibitors and small premiums were 
paid often ; now, ten thousand entries and thirty-five thousand dollars to be paid 
in premiums. 

" Last year there were murmurers over small prices incident to over-production. 
They are no more. Under favoring skies Iowa will have more dollars for a smaller 
crop than last year for a large one. She will surpass any state in the number of 
bushels of corn, and can show in value of the pig — the ' gintleman that pays the 
rint ', a larger value than any other state. So of the equine, not only by the race 
of Axtell, and owner Williams, but the broad, heavy-breasted steeds. Nor does 
the state forget our Moninger of short-horn fame, and the leaders sending our state 
far in the front rank in animal industry of all our states. An enemy of our statu- 
tory prohibition gloated over Iowa's loss of population, when our real gain after 
peopling the Dakotas, Kan.sas and Nebraska has been three hundred thousand in 
the last decade, more than twenty per cent. The education of our agricultural 
classes has been even greater under most favored moral and intellectual instruc- 
tion. No civilized state has so small a per cent, of her people in jails, poor houses 
and iirisons. Even greater than in advancing the animal races has been the prog- 
ress in the education of their owners. Temperance has played its part. Free 
schools, and our state fair, the people's college, with which there has been no 
scandal, in charge of a line of gentleman from President Hayes and Secretary 
Shaffer backward, worthy to be in the line of princes. Here is the result — scene 
of recreation, sport and instrtiction, in honor of man's first and noblest vocation 
under fortunate skies, where restrained by laws wise and lenient to the good and 
severe to the evil-doer. 

" Happy for Iowa and the city of Des Moines, in joint contribution they have 
ornamented these romantic and embowered acres where so recently the Indian 
whooped. The people will be here to witness magic gains in all engaging the 
human brain and heart. Gratitude should move to extend the hand to the less 
fortunate on our northern and western borders by loss of crops. The year 1890 adds 
a bright page to our history, with the melodies of the harvest song. We are proud 



320 EEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEABS. 

of a commonwealth, endowed by nature, and of gentlemen conspicuous for skill 
with the animal races, as the officers of a noble fair in entertaining the hundreds of 
thousands with the best attractions of a gala day. 

" ' I saw no intoxicated man on these grounds,' said a visitor last year. May 
there be none this, and owners of bloods will have new courage for gener 3us rivalry. 
The young man will learn of honor and independence in the vocation of statesmen 
in life's evening, and a product of rural life here will be man, the consummate 
flower that looks upward to his Maker." 

ARBORICULTURE. 

One of my early ventures, after coming to prairie-land, was 
sending word to my friend of the Bacon family, New Haven, Coim., 
for elm-seeds. Now the trees abound in the streets of this college 
town, reminding of the classic shades of the city whence came these 
children of strength and grace. At first, indeed, for rapid growth 
and for use as timber, nurseries and waysides were planted with 
the locust, but the great army of locust beetles, pretty in black and 
yellow livery, moving westward at, I believe, about thirty miles a 
year, struck us about 1866, ruining the trees by their grub-boring. 
The beautiful silver maples are favorites for speedy growth and 
cleanliness, but are fragile in prairie storms. Eor rich verdure we 
admire and transplant or sow our native box-elder. The ever- 
greens here and there do well, but for the most part have a hard 
and short life, exposed to drying winds. Long be the life of our 
" Beecher Maple ", planted by the hand of the orator himself, and 
our "Lincoln" and "Garfield" elms, planted on the respective 
days of the death of each. 

On a late visit to my son-in-law. Prof. K. D. Jones, at Normal, 
111., I was freshly reminded of a tree-culturist whose name should 
not be forgotten. In the literary city of Bloomington, of which 
Normal is a suburb, there lived the late Jesse W. Fell, an arbori- 
culturist and savant of eminence thirty years agone. Millions of 
birds skip on the fruit and ornamental boughs which adorn this 
country, and for him I seem to hear the plaintive refrain to his 
memory on the opening of the buds, to lend variety to luxuriant 
evergreen sentinels waving in grace on the prairie expanse. 

I know of nothing to so effectually drive away discontent and 
the demon of unrest, as the tree-embowered rural home. Let, then, 
Nebraska and Iowa plant and cherish trees in generous rivalry. 
Gentle rains shall fall in reward from heaven before as brass. 
The brute shall articulate gratitude to his master for shelter and 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 321 

shade; and our children, for the trees^ we left in arbor, orchard 
and field, will find incentives to cherish the paternal legacy, speak- 
ing as by the ^olian harp long after they who planted sleep in 
sepulture. 



Fences may be regarded from both an esthetical and a financial 
standpoint. Next to the soil in cost is its enclosure. In a Vir- 
ginia worm fence there was no beauty, only the toleration of a 
necessity. The very thought of great trees to be felled and split 
for rails, brings perspiration, and the memory of their laying up 
and replacing renews the back-ache. Now, stately oaks would not 
be accepted as a gift for fencing, when wire can be had, strong, 
barbed to intimidate, and less costly than wood, protecting, not 
wasting the soil, and set with legal exactions that avoid law-suits, 
without appeal to the Arkansas standard — "mule-high, bull-strong 
and hog-tight " — conditions repellant and impossible on the prai- 
ries where the barbing of wire has added tens of millions to the 
value of our acres. 

Town fencing was another question, and on the fenceless policy 
I doted — while in Washington asking for the removal of the high 
barricade of iron around the capitol and public grounds. I heard 
of the trees, defenseless, planted by the hand of Washington, turf 
spoiled, and flowers plucked ; but the fences are now gone ! Confi- 
dence in visitors has not been betrayed by vandalism. Public 
spirit and taste have established the green-sward in its beauty and 
secured protection. Fashion will not again mar with urban or 
rural barriers, a mockery of the trusting hospitality of neighbors. 

In our own beautiful city, once a bare prairie, now a grove, the 
bristling war-like pikes of fences are fast giving way, as elsewhere, 
to open lawns, defended by their unarmed beauty. Time was 
when even affluent owners insisted on their cows and horses hav- 
ing nightly freedom of the streets, after being driven in at evening 
from the prairie — defiling the walks, and endangering border 
plants accessible to the long necks of horses. There has been 
many a hard and long contest in western towns against this nui- 
sance, and in places it is still being waged. But civilization will 
yet be civilized, everywhere. 



322 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

A PROTECTIVE TARIFF POLICT, 

As things are, farmers must have fences, and they and others 
must have a tariff fence also. It was before college days that I 
found myself an American Protectionist. I could quote the com- 
mon-sense words of General Jackson, who showed that the farmer 
wanted a near market, to be attained by the multiplication of fac- 
tories where were cheap raw material, food for the operative, and 
motive power in coal mines, and water power ready to turn the 
wheels. Our government should defend enterprise, he believed, 
against the cheap labor of the old world, deluding us with the 
philosophy of raising the raw products while the cities, carriers 
and foreigners used the profits of fabrication. 

Henry Clay, the most popular American statesman, not only 
echoed Jackson that " it was time to be a little more American ", 
but was the eloquent defender of a tariff system which no pres- 
ident arraigned, down to Cleveland. In Vermont we were wool 
growers, and certainly partial to the rate of duty which brought 
gain to the flock master, the building of factories and the lessen- 
ing of the price of goods, besides securing our independence of 
other nations. 

Under even a high war tariff, no nation has so easily removed 
a colossal war debt and in a given period so enhanced its Avealth 
as ours, winning the admiration of the statesmen of the world, 
the exceptional opinion of a Gladstone standing for a country too 
limited in area to furnish soil for the raw products, and food for 
the laborers. 

A sharp, clear issue is near; duties levied for revenue only, 
or to give such protection that capital will unlock our native 
resources, enhancing the value of lands and securing better reward 
for labor. Our natural rivals would keep us in vassalage to the 
forge and the loom abroad, while burdening the producer with 
heavy freight charges, while the fabricator reaps large net profits. 
Mere book and college theories will not long mystify the masses, 
while in the study of personal interest and the road to the highest 
social independence and national wealth. 

It is the world's common law that the land owner may protect 
his fields against the trespasser, and it is not less plain that a gov- 
ernment may establish conditions on which rival nations may enter 
our markets. Extreme exactions will invite reform, but not the 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 323 

waiving of a policy. Advantages must be equalized, and the avoid- 
ance of all which savors of favoritism. To invite capital there 
must be stable legislation. I am asked, "Did you see the catalogue 
of the millionaires, by Mr. T. G. Shearman ? " I did, and the 
names allied to manufacturing as the source of wealth could not be 
found, to brand manufacturers as the great robbers. Invention, oil 
lands, coal and railway combination, gave an answer to the ques- 
tion, "How came these colossal fortunes?" It is not denied that 
high prices in war times added to the fortunes of millions, but the 
benefited class embraces farmers, bankers, railway builders and 
groups of citizens moving on with enterprise and hope. Monopoly 
is a canting terror used without reason. 

Grave matters of public concern demand a fixed conclusion, not 
only by the reasoner, but a formulation to guide to a safe and prac- 
tical legislative policy. It is a discredit, perhaps, to human nature 
that we fail to rise above the caprice of the hour, and a low grade 
of selfishness, to the broad plane of generous comity and enlight- 
ened statesmanship. Outside of political bias, personal interest, or 
pride of opinion, I have reached this conclusion, that a national 
policy should be as devoid of party strifes, as is the question of 
birthplace in the determination of true patriotism. 

Keading, reflection and business experience, have all conspired 
to exalt the Hamilton s, the Jacksons, the Clays, the Greeleys, 
Henry Careys andBlaines, as financial leaders, if not demi-gods, to 
be studied and followed with the pride and ardor which pertains to 
American loyalty. AVhat ! do you give no credit for honesty and 
fidelity to conviction to those who advocate free trade ? I assume 
that the New York press for the most part writes and prints for 
pay, and in the interest of a commercial city, which seeks to be the 
thoroughfare and port of commerce for a hundred millions of peo- 
ple. And I have no agreement, if conceding honesty, with the 
paid teachers of political science, who argue directly against the 
interests of wage-workers, and the farming classes. My contempt 
is beyond expression for the pretenders, with their money gains in 
bank or bonds, that declaim against American protection as a 
denial to buy where they can purchase the cheapest and sell their 
gold at the dearest rates. What are they but creatures who have 
turned their backs to the masses, for personal inordinate gain ? 
The poor may have an excuse for a blind experiment, and a depres- 
sion of prices to sate his hunger or clothe his body, but this .does 



324 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

not apply to those inheriting money or living upon fixed salaries. 
In a call for a verdict by the people on this question, the privileged 
can have no place in the jury-box and their specious pleas Vi^ill 
be met with a becoming derision, as the mockery of patriotism. 

Ah ! but what will you do with the great preachers of universal 
brotherhood, who are for free trade as the normal condition and for 
the best welfare of nations ? They are but theorists. It was my 
fortune and duty to tell the lamented Beecher, a great heart has 
muddled the financial brain that has a clear perception of parental 
duty, toward a child or family, involving more in providing for 
his own than for another household and nation. Fellow-country- 
men, banded for protection and fortified against assault, have the 
first claim, else patriotism is a delusion, and natural affection a myth. 

We might well listen to the opinion of a Bismark, who sees in 
our protective policy the solution of the problems Avith which the 
wastes of war and debt confronted us, and the way by which 
we attained, in credit, wealth and power, the first place among 
nations. It is left for the politician to study tlie question of 
cheap foreign goods, linked with idleness at home, contrasted with 
an era of activity, expansion and independence, such as no other 
nation has achieved. The practical question will appear, to a rural 
people, shall the ore in the mountains, and coal, and all the powers 
and incidents to invention, be developed at home, under economic 
laws, or shall we be a dependent nation, dealing at arms-length 
with powerful rivals ? 

I must stand by my speech in Congress, without variableness 
or shadow of turning. I showed that, against all the rules of 
domestic and political economy, the raw material, like the hide of 
a beef, which left the prairies, passing through from six to ten 
handlings and commissions, would be proof of vassalage. The 
alternative was the fabricator, with his family, to move under 
fairer skies and where there was cheaper fuel and food, obtainable 
without the intervention of middleman. 

The glove factory at Grinnell, the shoe-shops springing up in 
the West, the various factories, are the arguments for that policy 
which brings wealth to the nation, and must become the standing 
argument for the thoughtful farmer, who takes pride in the state 
of his adoption, and desires that standard of Avealth and refinement 
which it has never been the fortune of a simple agricultural com- 
munity or nation to attain. 




IOWA COLLEGE BUILDINGS 



CHAPTER XXL 

Grinnell University and loioa College — Their hiildinc/ — Progress 
— Fire — Tornado Benefactors — Tribute to their Memory — 
Other Benefactors — Use of Trust Funds. 

From a mass of material is gleaned what is most worthy 
of presentation, related to Grinnell University and Iowa College. 
The facts may be of service to the future historian of the college. 
A part is from the pen of President Carter, of Williams College, 
Dr. Magoun, and others, tributes to the early friends of education. 
After the losses by fire and the tornado, a visit to personal and 
business friends distant secured large sums from those outside the 
church, toward the erection of buildings ; and for their liberality 
there is, if late, a becoming tribute. 

There will be found neither a defense of my acts as trustee 
for thirty odd j^ears nor a criticism of administration — rather a 
welding of the links in a providential chain, in keeping with an 
optimistic spirit that studied and looked for a rainbow, rather 
than the lightning's flash. If the task is a delicate one, the reader 
will ask no apology from the only living person who participated 
in all the events. I saw the string of oxen turning over the vir- 
gin sod, for a cornfield; later the imbedding of granite corner- 
stones for the first prairie edifice, the burning of which was the 
promise of one more comely ; then, in the path of destruction by 
the tornado of 1882, there has risen from ashes the noble edifices, 
due to the generosity of friends and to the tasteful ministries of 
art. 

The pictures opposite represent only the buildings which 
immediately rose after the tornado, and are the delight of our citi- 
zens and visiting friends ; their erection and use, with a mention 
of the benefactors by whose liberality they were reared, will be 
more than a study of local import and interest. 

Our artists have not well represented the beautiful, natural 
campus, nor have they more than Mnted the landscape features, 



326 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

generously planned by Donald G. Mitchell, and supplemented by 
the grading and planning due to the elegant taste of Professor H. 
W. Parker. It is evident that so comely a group of edifices are 
the products of artists of the highest repute, with a view to util- 
ity as chapel, class-rooms, laboratories, library halls, and museum- 
galleries. More than $100,000 are placed in these walls, voiceless 
as to the benefactors whose names will here find a grateful mention, 
in the hope that students in temporary sojourn not less than grad- 
uates will appreciate those rare facilities in acquiring an education 
which were denied their fathers. There should be a mention of 
the devotion to sound learning of those who planned Iowa's first 
college on the banks of the Mississippi. The forecast and wisdom 
in its removal, with a hospitable generous welcome, to the prairies, 
will appear more than a mere incident, since all are interwoven 
with the most impressive evidences of Divine care in a history of 
seeming reverses, now read as blessings in the open book of God's 
providences. 

I cheerfully comply with the request to write out some facts 
pertinent to the founding of Grinnell University and Iowa College. 
It is a delicate service, for I shall not attempt concealment of an 
early ambition to be allied with a good academy or university at 
my western home, when not anticipating so long and honorable an 
association with persons who were and are truly the devoted pio- 
neers of the age. 

IOWA COLLEGE. 

In March, 1844, while Iowa was yet a territory, our college was 
planneii at Denmark by the well-known Iowa Band, by the prompt- 
ings of Kev. Asa Turner, Rev. Julius A. Reed and Seth Richards, 
Esq., since the generous founder of a professorship in Iowa College, 
and James Houghton, Esq. A committee was appointed on the 
location of the college, and in 1846 Davenport was selected as the 
site. Rev. Asa Turner was appointed in 1844 to go East as an 
agent to secure funds, and returned with little money but with a 
profusion of vague promises. A home subscription was started 
with a liberal response, and Rev. J. J. Hill, of the Iowa Band, put 
the first dollar in the treasury before the birth of his sons, three of 
whom have graduated at Iowa College. Of these sons. Dr. Ger- 
shom Hill, now a trustee, and Rev. J. L. Hill, pastor at Medford, 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 327 

Mass., joined in giving rhetorical prizes ; and the other, George H. 
Hill, I found emulating his father by making the first donation to 
the new college at Pomona, Cal. The portrait of Rev. J. J. Hill, 
whose father was an educator and member of Congress from 
Maine, greets you in welcome as you enter the college library in 
Goodnow Hall. It has an inspiration in a seeming smile of satis- 
faction on the growth of the institution, which found in him an 
early friend, and gains in rich and later benefactions by his 
children. 

The particular gifts and early devotion of the Iowa Band with 
other friends, I need not detail, but as a trustee of the college for 
thirty years, I am a witness of their gifts to its treasury and their 
abounding service. Nor are the reasons for a removal from Daven- 
port to Grinnell pertinent to my narration. I cannot forbear to 
make mention of professors Erastus Ripley, Daniel Lane and H. 
L. Bullen, with others, gone to their reward, who labored hard and 
lived on meagre salaries, laying a foundation for a happy blending 
of interests in a more central location and in the midst of congenial 
society. The gift of town property to education at Grinnell 
attracted a class of settlers of intelligence, having families in wait- 
ing for the formation of college classes, and able to furnish student 
homes in want of dormitories and commons. 

The property held by the Literary Fund for Grinnell Univers- 
ity was no chance-incident affair. It came by profits on land sold 
outside the town, and from donated lots rising in value, backed by 
the gift of a campus of twenty acres, and local subscription of 
about $5,000, gathered in the gloomiest period of our financial his- 
tory. A comely brick building, spacious for that day, was not 
completed before the later union for want of time ; not because of 
lack of courage, or money. It represented sacrifice in drawing the 
granite for the foundations from a distance, and night service by 
humble citizens, and ardent women holding candles for light in 
lathing the college. Their names may be forgotten, but their zeal 
was like a contagion ; and the labor and gifts were the promise of 
a college, whether united with Iowa College or alone in sacrifice. 

That cordial service rendered by Rev. S. L. Herrick and Rev. 
Julius A. Reed, and others, should have recognition, if without col- 
lege record. Then, Prof. L. F. Parker and wife were laborious, 
cheerful and efficient in laying foundations, and on these they are 
still building with large material gifts and welcome professional 



328 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

services. Well named the man of all work and professor, he gave 
the Latin address on behalf of the faculty as Carter Professor of 
Languages, commencing — "Plena movienti est vita", at the inau- 
guration of the first president. Dr. George F. Magoun. 

THE GRINNELL UNIVERSITY. 

This is mentioned as the "so called" in later days. Was it 
not a reality ? It had enlisted professors of rank, had a larger 
number of students than Iowa College, more property, and made 
an unreserved surrender of its charter, good will and building prop- 
erty, estimated on a low cash basis at $25,000. This was a larger 
sum in reality, not prospectively, than that of the college fund in 
Davenport, rising by actual sales and value of lands to $75,000. 
This gift must ever be in association not with one, but with a peo- 
ple joined in purpose while pioneers, many of them gone to their 
reward, yet who have left children with a friendship and unfalter- 
ing trust in the college which reflects the virtues of their fathers. 

The union of Grinnell University and Iowa College was more 
than a sentiment. One of the parties, not a mythical character, 
the university president, gave the following address at the inaugu- 
ration and nuptial ceremonies : 

Mr. President : 

It is a pleasant duty with which I am charged on this occasion, in formally 
recognizing a union now effected, which virtually secures the coalescence of Grin- 
nell University in Iowa College. 

Coming to you in our youth, wearing the simple blushes of a maiden on the 
occasion of marriage proposals, we make no apologies for the natural and coy 
advances of a yearning heart, nor for the seeming indulgence of leap-year privi- 
leges; for, so blissful is the union, that had you known more of us we know that 
earlier you would have taken us " for better or worse ". 

Permit us, then (with a parenthesis, that we may be reassured of the consider- 
ation due to so unassuming a bride), to remind you that our contribution to thia 
union was an untarnished reputation, two professors, a half hundred of students, 
the good-will of a community, and a considerable dowry of the value in college 
building, land and cash, of twenty-five thousand dollars. 

Let these currents of influence — widening and deepening as they flow, with 
the products of common toil consecrated to sound learning — be one. The stream- 
let that was by the " Father of Waters ", and shares the loves of the Alumni, wel- 
comes, we know, this prairie rill that mingles with the glee of our youth to-day its 
murmurs in salutation to you, our pilot and president, in this conflux. Hundreds 
of churches, the guardians of our common schools and sagacious statesmen, indulge 
the hope that by this fountain of learning, the first made free to the poor and 
maimed of our gallant soldiery, there may grow the trees of knowledge whose 
gilded leaves, graceful boughs and golden fruit shall be at once an attraction and a 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 329 

blessing to many generations dwelling on these "unshorn gardens". All is 
auspicious. 

Let me, then, most heartily, in behalf of the founders of Grinnell University, 
her trustees, the beauty and virtue of her daughters, and the well-proven chivalry 
of her sons, surrender to your keeping her all. 

The youth of our commonwealth we know are your pride. You have the ripe 
culture and the educational experience of one who may make his motto, Aut viam 
invenlam aut faciam, and God being your counsellor, we are confident of wide and 
glorious results. 

The college has continued to flourish notwithstanding the deci- 
mation of numbers by the civil war, and the loss of its buildings, 
first by fire, again by tornado, and on both occasions, the destruc- 
tion of library, apparatus and fine museums. I gave an address in 
June, 1882, amidst the crumbling walls of the first college, and in 
sight of the yet smoking ruins of the second and third. It was at 
the laying of the coraer-stone of Alumni Hall, and I said our fallen 
trees would let in the light, the trimming of the clumps was thor- 
ough, if not artistic, and the wastes of the storm would awaken 
practical sympathy, causing statelier buildings to rise; the college 
would be better known, and stronger and larger in every desired 
proportion on account of seeming calamity. Prof. H. W. Parker 
recited a beautiful poem, and the Avords of our president were faith 
and supreme trust in Him who had sent but a temporary, blighting 
hope, for the clouds of adversity were now rising. 

Our first president resigned, after having served above twenty 
years with ability and fidelity. So far as I am aware his opinions 
as to the accepting of faculty resignations and the filling of vacan- 
cies in the board of instruction were recognized and adopted. 
And I am reminded here that, when I first visited the West, the 
now venerable ex-president of Iowa College, Geo. F. Magoun, D.D., 
with the flush of youth and enthusiasm, was an academy prin- 
cipal at Plattville, and later was in Beloit at the founding of the 
college, to Avhich institution my own first educational gift' was 
made. Beloit College was then but a dream. At the corner-stone 
laying of its first building, I first became acquainted with Dr. 
Magoun; and it is an oft^-epeated remark that this was the begin- 
ning of forty-six years of varied public and eventful service, more 
or less in co-operation. He has long been honored, not only as our 
presiding officer, but also as an Andover lecturer ; a writer of mas- 
terly ability in reviews and other journals ; the model biographer 
of our model pioneer and trustee. Father Turner ; and as conspic- 



330 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

uous in ecclesiastical, missionary, reform, and even political con- 
ventions, not omitting his representation of this conntry in foreign 
chnrch assemblies, and conferences on international law. 

There seemed, indeed, to be a fatality, when we foiind able 
instructors, in their being attracted elsewhere, examples of which 
we have in Prof. John Avery, the distinguished philologist, now 
deceased ; Prof. Henry Carmichael, chemist, afterward of Bowdoin 
College ; and Prof. Arthur S. Hardy, called to Dartmouth, and ris- 
ing to eminence not alone in his profession, but as an author of 
celebrity. Prof. L. F. Parker left temporarily for the State Uni- 
versity, after twenty years of service, and returns as professor of 
history. Prof. H. W. Parker, now of New York, returned after 
nine years in the Massachusetts Agricultural College. He has left 
the evidences of his genius and energy in our model cabinet as a 
naturalist, besides adding, in supplement to his volume of poetry, 
a prose work attracting the warmest praise of scholars, entitled, 
'•' The Spirit of Beauty ". Thus has the college suffered by Avith- 
drawal of able instructors, and more recently has had occasion to 
accept the resignation of Prof. Fisk P. Brewer and J. M. Crow, of 
more than local repute as linguists, Avho amidst universal commend- 
ation and sorrow have closed their earthly career. 

The Catalogue of 1890-91, after two years of fuii service by 
the new president, Geo. A. Gates, shows a full corps of instructors 
in longer and briefer periods of able service, in harmonious and 
entlmsiastic co-operation. The total attendance of students is 
nearly six hundred, being much above that of the three years pre- 
vious. The modern idea. of self-government is adopted with pleas- 
ing results. The games and sports on the campus give promise of 
health and muscular development, as yet in no way detracting from 
studious habits, and from the deportment becoming gentlemen. 
The buildings are mainly warmed by steam from a single plant, in 
avoidance of dust and exposure to fire, and with a lessening of 
expense. Electric lights gleam on the campus, and symbolize the 
progress that gives the college a more flattering prospect of a thou- 
sand students, at an early date, than it had for hundreds, twenty 
years ago. 

Our sad tornado history is interwoven with the names of many 
generous friends in the restoration that reared five stone and brick 
edifices, where by the recent calamity there were only the ruins of 
a nicht. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 331 

BLAIK HALL AND GOODNOW HALL. 

The Hon. John I. Blair, for whom Blair Hall was named, gave 
over $16,000 toward its erection. He was mentioned in befitting 
compliments by Governor Merrill on its dedication, and a life-size 
oil painting of himself seems to smile in satisfaction from our 
library walls. It was here, too, that he offered counsel in a speech 
to the students, of even greater value, if heeded, than his liberal 
money benefactions. 

Blair Hall is the central and largest of the college structures, 
built of stone, gothic in architecture. Its two wings arc occupied 
by the chemical, physical and biological departments, the first- 
mentioned occupying the three stories of one wing. The central 
part contains the museum hall, thirty by sixty feet, and fifty-two 
feet high, with two encircling galleries — undoubtedly the finest 
and completest museum in design and contents to be found west of 
New York or Michigan. It includes the f 1200 set of Ward's 
casts given by George H. Corliss, a $7,000 collection of mounted 
mammals and birds formerly exhibited in Central Park, New York, 
and a $500 series of invertebrates presented by Morris K. Jesup, 
the New York banker, besides countless other specimens liiustrat- 
ing all the kingdoms and classes in nature. 

GOODNOW LIBRARY HALL. 

This edifice is a most artistic and beautiful stone structure. It 
was named in honor of Hon. E. A. Goodnow, of Worcester, Mass., 
who gave $10,500 toward its erection. Its library alcoves are 
ample. Its reading-room and ofl&ces are spacious, while, with an 
enlarged plan, there is added a telescope tower, both for use and 
architectural harmony. The dedication oration was by the friend 
of the donor, Eev. D. 0. Mears, D. D., whose subject was, ''The 
Republic of Books ". An historical address was delivered on the 
occasion, June 23, 1885, by the writer, as follows : 

Mr. President, Ladies: and Gentlemen : 

Goodnow Hall we formally dedicate to-day. Its corner stone was laid in the 
last autumn with commemorative service of song, oration and prayer, in the pres- 
ence of a large and happy gathering of citizens, students, faculty, trustees and 
friends of Iowa College. 

To-day, awakening our admiration, and ready for the dome, is an edifice ele- 



332 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 



gant in design — the work of genius, and a modern classic in art, a product of the 
handiwork of skilled artisans who have moulded with chisel, perfected and shaped 
with hammer, steam appliance and heat, the best of Iowa and Missouri sand and 
limestone ; the rare, red-tinted quartzite^of the Dakotas ; slate from the quarries of 
New Jersey; copper from the mines of Lake Superior; chaste and enduring pine 
of the South, deftly framed with iron girders, a combination in material for 
strength, beauty and utility. 

It is the gem on our ample oval campus, crowned with Alumni, Chicago and 
Blair Halls, at once the joyous delight and mystery to the sad throngs of visitors 
who witnessed the terrible tornado desolation of three years agone. Not uuto us 
shall be the praise, for it was not by us they arose. Many thousands came by the 
Chicago & Rock Island Railway, and not less than fifty thousand dollars beyond 
the circle of our Congregational order, Avith a spontaneity that discredits the 
theories of total race depravity, and with rare munificence that sliall evermore 
express a regard by the people for collegiate education and for Iowa College, eldest 
and honored of our state institutions. 

In the inception there was only a library hall. The plan adopted presents an 
edifice majestic in proportions, combining utility, symmetry and strength. A 
lower hall is a reading-room with an annex for an art collection. The second story, 
in gallery and alcoves, has a capacity for fifty thousand volumes, connected with 
an office, or more quiet retreat for thought and consultation, and with easy access 
to the telescopic tower, which is so solid in structure as never to be moved by storm 
or tempest ; fully equal to the latest demands of science, it will lend new interest 
to the students of the world's starry wonders. The architect is Mr. Stephen C. 
Eai-1, of Worcester, Mass., whose fame is as wide as the renown of the guild. 

Our honored patron was to have been a guest of the college to-day, but he is 
not here to share in these festivities, and I can only voice your hearty welcome ; 
that of gi-ateful children of the new "West to an elderly, modest Christian gentle- 
man ; that he may yet come to grace a banquet in Iowa in honor of a name 
endeared in the heart of the Old Commonwealth and linked with graceful, munifi- 
cent charities around the globe. 

Should the delicate sensibility of the orator of this occasion. Dr. Mears, omit 
his prime agency in turning the heart of our patron philanthropist here, I should 
be derelict in duty and in historic fidelity, not to make this mention. He gave 
cheer amidst our desolations by storm ; was a helpful friend in restoration and the 
Seer with a more delicate touch than that which early smote the rock to open the 
fountain ; he touched the heart that gives an earnest and hopeful augury of a 
perennial flow that shall enrich our treasury, for the growth and efficiency of 
departments in learning, to flourish as trees of the garden by the fountains of 
waters. 

It is more than witicism — a modern opinion — that in certain Boston circles it 
is neither respectable nor safe to die without leaving a legacy for Harvard College. 
We supplicate that spirit in hope that westward, like the Star of Empire, it may 
" take its way ", shedding radiant and benign gifts from full coffers and affluent 
hearts on this college, a child of devotion, a growth by sacrifice, and enjoying an 
almost miraculous resurrection. Hail! and forever welcome our thousand bene- 
factors and your children to the halls you reared, and to hearts buoyant in hope 
to-day, in the dedication of our latest material treasure. 

Students and college x)atrons will A'isit and revisit, in ever-increasing numbers, 
our campus, to receive the inspiration of a classic retreat, lingering in the sun of 
the morning as it sheds its x^rismatic gleam on the volumes whicli reflect the 
wisdom and thought of the ages ; ascending the tower, a telescope which invests 
with new interest a study of the starry world, will awaken gratitude, while to be 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 333 

read in a rich golden sunset, chiseled in marble and in bold relief on the tower, is 
the name to abide the wastes of time, and for us and our children the synonym of 
Christian generosity — that of Hon. Edward A. Goodnow. 

THE MARY GRINNELL MEARS COTTAGE. 

There had long been earnest discussion in regard to rooms for 
ladies, where supervision and the best accommodations could be 
had. Only a few thousand dollars for this object were in the 
treasury, when, by a glad and second surprise, the donor of Good- 
now Library Hall made a gift of $5,000 to a building to be known 
as the Mary Grinnell Mears Cottage. On acceptance of the condi- 
tions, Eev. J. M. Chamberlain and wife gave a block of land join- 
ing the campus, a most valuable and opportune place for the cot- 
tage ; the corner-stone being laid with appropriate ceremonies and 
addresses by Rev. Mr. Chamberlain, Mrs. Crow, the lady principal, 
and Mrs. Mary G. Mears. The building is tasteful in all its 
appointments, and fully occupied. 

EDWARD A. GOODNOW 

is a venerable citizen of Worcester, Mass., a late but most serv- 
iceable friend by gifts which have secured the building of Library 
Hall and the Mary Grinnell Mears Cottage. Our tornado calamity 
first engaged his sympathy, and later an " alumna " of the college 
won his attention to our wants, which led to the securing of the 
"Ladies' Cottage". 

The following was the tribute given by the lady for whom the 
cottage was named, at the laying of the corner-stone of the cottage, 
June, 1888 : 

"The genesis of this Ladies' Cottage was in the warm pulsations of the ' Heart 
of the Old Bay State Commonwealth ', in the person of the eminent financier and 
philanthropist — Hon. E. A. Goodnow, of Worcester, Mass. I bring to you to-day, 
a message of interest and affection from him — from one who has never trod the 
soil of our Iowa — 'Beautiful Land', but who has given more than fifteen thou- 
sand dollars to enrich our college. 

" Could you go with me to the private office of this banker, you would find a 
notable art gallery. The pictures were not wrougiit by the skillful hand of a Van 
Dyck or a Titian ; they were not produced by brush and canvas at an expense of 
thousands of dollars, but are simple photographs, representing in stone and brick 
the results of a continual flow of blessings falling from his hand upon the daugh- 
ters of benighted Africa, the red men of the forest, ' our brother in black ', the 
classic haunts of Holyoke and Wellesley, and upon the schools of the Evangelist 



334 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

Moody. But these pictures cannot represent a titlie of the Christian benevolence 
wliicli has flowed from this quiet office. A tribute to the martyr Joliu Brown 
blessed Washburn College, in Kansas; the library hall in Princeton proclaims 
with silent eloquence his loyalty to his early home ; nor in this ijreseuce can we 
forget yonder Goodnow Library Hall, whose jasper walls are as fair and firm as 
ever pleased the eye of artisan, architect or artist. 

" Besides all these, Mr. Goodnow speaks to the world through scores of trained 
minds in our own and other colleges, who but for his kindly aid might have been 
denied the possibility of the highest development. Thus while keeping his own 
heart warm, -he is in the line of the highest philosophy, transmuting the perishable 
treasures of earth into eternal gold, beyond the reach of Time's effacing fingers. 

" 'As for his bounty there was no winter in't.' " 



JACOB HAISH, 

of De Kalb, 111., placed a sum of money in my hands to be used at 
personal discretion, to which, after years of accumulation, was 
added smaller sums by Col. S. F. Cooper, J. H. Merrill and others, 
resulting in the securing of an Alvan Clark telescope, already men- 
tioned. At the dedication, this most thoughtful benefactor was 
extolled in verse by Prof. H. W. Parker, also in an eloquent pane- 
gyric and dedicatory oration by Rev. Wm. R. Scarritt, with com- 
mendation by the Professor of Astronomy, S. J. Buck. 

It is not in idle boast, but with grateful emotion in regard to 
our benefactor, that I mention this telescope as the first in size 
and modern appointments in Iowa. It makes the sublime study of 
astronomy, with all cognate topics, practical for the college student 
and specialist, making the college equal to the best, in this respect. 

In the gifts of Mr. Goodnow, Mr. Haish and similar benefactors 
will be found no application of the reproach by Dean Swift that 
"reputations for benevolence could be gained by the laying out of 
five pounds a year". Our friends were mainly silent givers, nor 
could they be classed with ambitious townsmen, or sectarians, giv- 
ing as a money investment or ministering to state pride. 

AARON BENEDICT AND CHARLES BENEDICT. 

These were among our earliest and noblest benefactors. The 
following facts are furnished by Ex-President G. F. Magoun, D. D. : 

" The Benedict Professorship of Latin in Iowa College was 
founded and endowed by Deacon Aaron Benedict, of the First Con- 
gregational Church, Waterbury, Conn., and Deacon Charles Bene- 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 335 

diet, his son, of the Second Church. Nearly twenty-five years ago 
Eev. Theron Baklwin, D. D., of the okl 'Western College Society', 
opened the way for my visiting them under the sanction of that 
society. On Monday morning, after preaching in both churches 
upon the Sabbath, I found them at the counting-room of the Ben- 
edict & Burnham Clock Factory, the father having resigned the 
oversight of the great industries he had built up to the son, but 
still retaining an active interest in them. After describing the 
condition, needs and opportunities of the college. Deacon Aaron 
said with a smile, ' I guess you had better give him, Charles, one 
thousand dollars for his preaching yesterday.' My proposition to 
them was to com^plete the endowment of the chair of ancient lan- 
guages, these including Greek and Latin, the endowment of which 
by Deacon P. W. Carter, of the same town, had been arrested by 
his death. On subsequent visits to Waterbury, other gifts were 
added on other Monday mornings by these gentlemen, the father 
assuring me once that I should always earn at least one thousand 
dollars for the college by preaching in the two churches of Water- 
bury. Ere long I ventured to propose the division of the lan- 
guage chair, as originally contemplated by Deacon Carter, who 
wished his money in that case to go to the Greek endowment, and 
the creation of a Benedict endowment of Latin. The elder Bene- 
dict always deferred to the judgment of his admirable son, and, 
this plan being accepted, I received at one time as much as four 
thousand dollars in one sum to complete ten thousand dollars for 
the new chair. The evening before my marriage to the lady prin- 
cipal of the Waterbury Seminary for young ladies — since ' St. 
Margaret's' — Hon. Charles Benedict gave me for his father and 
himself, ten thousand dollars to complete the endowment of twenty 
thousand dollars, 

" These were men of mark, capable of planning and doing large 
things. Hon. Charles Benedict, a man of noble presence and spirit, 
became in his last years president of the Western College Society. 
Other colleges besides ours shared in his hearty and practical benef- 
icence. A man of very few words, but of great administrative 
ability, and steady energy, he gave as careful scrutiny to matters 
of benevolence and Christian usefulness as to those of business, 
and his discernment and sagacity were counted by all who knew 
him of very superior value. It was the mechanical skill and 
inventiveness of his father which created so much of the manu- 



336 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

facturing enterprises of the beautiful city which owes so much to 
them." 

SAMUEL WILLISTON. 

This gentleman, a resident of Easthampton, Mass., was the 
largest giver to our college in one sum, $30,000. He was held in 
honor as founder of Williston Seminary, a liberal patron of Mt. 
Holyoke Seminary, Amherst College and other institutions of 
learning. Service as a legislator, and in the governor's council, 
was only incident to his career as one of the intelligent manufac- 
turers of New England. He was the pioneer button-maker, and 
led in the fabrication of rubber goods, while persistent in efforts to 
establish for Americans an ideal spool thread. The story of his 
contest with a foreign article is one of heroism and sacrifice, only 
relinquished when five hundred thousand dollars had been 
expended to meet the demands of Americans. His better pay for 
labor and high-interest account did not furnish the full occasion of 
the failure. It was rather a colossal foreign combination which 
led to his defeat. Still, he enjoyed the well-sounded fame of a 
manufacturer, whose wealth was bestowed in the spirit of a broad 
philanthropy. Childless, his great heart adopted the homeless, 
who have gone forth in numbers to reflect the highest social 
virtues. 

His interest in Iowa College was first aAvakened by Dr. J. C. 
Holbrook, octogenarian, now of California, who early told the story 
of our college, seeking an endowment of fifty thousand dollars. 
Mr. Williston had knowledge of one of its founders, and had culti- 
vated the zeal of an apostle of Christian education ; and from his 
broad brain and warm heart there was a constant flow in benefac- 
tions. The first pledge was a conditional one of twenty thousand 
dollars, but knowing how sound were our president's views on the 
tariff system, and the high temperance standard of the town, in 
the centre of the state, he cheerfully made his gift absolute. Later, 
on visiting Grinnell, mingling with our students and people, he 
said no gift of his life had afforded him more pleasure, adding, "If 
my business will allow I shall increase the endowment to thirty 
thousand dollars." This was at a critical epoch in our history, 
when he attested his devotion to the college, notwithstanding his 
great losses. Since I had nothing to do incipiently in enlisting our 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. SZl . 

great benefactor, I will add, though it may seem egotistical, that I 
sent my speech in Congress to him in favor of our tariff, contain- 
ing an answer to the rebel threat that New England was to be 
''left out in the cold". In acknowledgment he said, "I have 
decided, so well pleased am I with your views, to add ten thousand 
dollars to my original investment, Avhich has given me unalloyed 
jileasure." Thus another benefactor needs no monument, for he 
lives in the hearts of those whom he would elevate, and by the 
memories of a noble citizen, a patriotic American, and an exem- 
plary Christian. 

J. p. WILLISTON, 

of Northampton, was his brother, an example in humble giving 
which inspired others ; and he became an eminent example by his 
gifts to our college and to others. He was a man of eminent self- 
sacrifice, living plainly that he might gladden the hearts of the 
poor and encourage young Christian institutions on the frontier. 

WILLIAM E, DODGE. 

This name recalls the lamented philanthropist, who was a 
Christian laborer and munificent giver ; I have on another occasion 
held him to be the model Christian statesman. 

I pause before his elegant full likeness in bronze, on Broadway, 
New York, erected by the Chamber of Commerce, over which he 
so long presided. I visit the spacious Home for Inebriates, which 
he endoweji, and read the instructive biographic volume by his 
son. Dr. D. Stuart Dodge, which should be in every library, 
refreshing to young and old in review of the life of a princely mer- 
chant, patriotic congressman, and the dispenser of millions of dol- 
lars for the education and elevation of our people. 

It was about twelve thousand dollars which he gave to Iowa 
College in its dark hours, but as drops to the ocean in comparison 
with the measure of his charities, to be the more esteemed in asso- 
ciation with the counsels of his life and the prayers which fol- 
lowed his gifts. I have no doubt that the Dodge Professorship 
would have been fully endowed had his life been spared to make a 
desired visit to Iowa, whose people, in their intelligence and pro- 
hibitory temperance legislation, won his admiration. From the 



338 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

surviving members of the family the college is still the recipient 
of money gifts, prompted by the same spirit which helped forward 
a college on the Bosphorus and in most of our States in the Union. 

The temperance cause has lost its most ardent advocate as well 
as its most liberal patron, the national organ having been sustained 
by him financially for many years ; and there will be found what 
is not known to the public, that there is a fund, secured by his 
liberality and solicitation, amounting to sixty thousand dollars, the 
interest of which will be used for the suppression of intemperance. 
Whatever may be said of the colossal wealth of the deceased, his 
warm living hand has disbursed charity in millions of dollars, 
being the patron of colleges, seminaries and academies here and in 
all lands beyond the ocean, and more than thirty men are ministers 
of the Gospel who gained their education by the benefactions of 
the lamented William E. Dodge. Though a Presbyterian, he was 
the vice-president of the American board, and the largest contribu- 
tor annually to missions, which was an index to a character never 
moved by clamor and built up in adherence to sacred principles. 
Thus in our rebellion he was a patriot. In Congress the friend of 
labor, and an advocate of a tariff in seeming opposition to his pecun- 
iary interest as an importer. His last public speech was in Cooper 
Institute, with Peter Cooper and Evarts, in support of the American 
system. 

Mr. Dodge was a most accomplished presiding officer, sagacious, 
quick in execution and genial. Facts in moral and financial dis- 
cussions he marshalled with adroitness, and used them with the skill 
of a persuasive orator. He never wearied ; nor faltered under the 
heaviest load and the darkest cloud, but as a great-hearted friend 
he will longest be remembered. 

CAKES AMES. 

It was by a casual remark on leaving Congress, and in response 
to the good wishes of Mr. Ames, that I said he could best show his 
regard for me by endowing a professorship in Iowa College. His 
reply was, "What! would you advise me, a large borrower of 
money and with the Pacific Railroad on my back, to pledge money 
to a college ? But I will think of it." He set out after years of 
accumulation to carry forward a great work, which I hoped might 
keep our name to be remembered with honor ; but there was some 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 339 

doubt in the midst of capricious enemies. I took a hopeful view 
of the Pacific Kailroad scheme. The next day at lunch he took 
out his memorandum book, and wrote, "I propose to place in the 
hands of Mr. J. B. Grinnell six thousand dollars, as the beginning 
of a professorship in Iowa College at Grinnell." 

Years passed, and knowing of his troubles by false and timid 
friends, and observing as we met in Boston that not only Avas his 
credit gone, but that he was sinking under his misfortunes, it was 
no surprise that there was an announcement that the great-hearted 
Ames, on being clouded in his reputation by a vote of Congress, 
had died of a broken heart. Later, his son, Oliver Ames, since 
and for several terms an honored governor of the Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts, wrote me as follows : " I find a pencil memorandum 
made by my father some years ago, proposing to give six thousand 
dollars toward a professorship in Iowa College. You know of his 
decease, and I regret to inform you that he left no money or avail- 
able assets to meet the wishes indulged in time of prosperity. If 
there should be a turn in affairs and it is found possible to do any- 
thing, I will advise you." 

It is a happy sequel that, before he was a candidate for gov- 
ernor, he wrote, " I think I can pass to your treasurer bonds to the 
amount of six thousand dollars, if you will accept them." Later, 
he sent word that it was his pleasure to cash the bonds in honor of 
his father and pay the interest in full if desired. 

This act, the prompting of generosity, I made public in honor 
of father and son ; and I united in a volume with the leading men 
of the nation in vindication of the motives of Mr. Ames in regard 
to the "Credit Mobilier", and, later, called out the car-loads of 
passengers to cheer in the shadow of the monument in Wyoming, 
erected in honor of the brothers, builders of the Union Pacific 
Railroad, saying that their names would be remembered with 
gratitude — 

" Until the sun grows cold, 
And the stars are old." 

MKS. DANIEL P. STONE. 

By solicitation of President Magoun, this liberal lady, faithful 
to the benevolent wishes of her husband, gave twenty-five thousand 
dollars for the express purpose of endowing a chair of natural his- 



340 RE^IINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

tory for Prof. Henry W. Parker. She acted in consultation with 
her relative and wise adviser, Eev. William H. Willcox, D. D., who 
by request writes the following : 

" Mr Daniel P. Stone, a Boston merchant, died in 1878, leaving 
an estate of about two millions. After making liberal provision 
for his few kindred, he gave the great bulk of his property to his 
widow, 'to do with it Avhatsoever she saw fit'. She at once made 
large gifts to her relatives, in anticipation of bequests they would 
otherwise have received through her will, and then proceeded to 
give away the remainder to needy individuals and institutions. I 
was at the time pastor of a Congregational Church in Reading, 
Mass., but, having married a dearly-loved niece of Mrs. Stone, she 
invited me to relinquish my parish and become her confidential 
adviser in the distribution of her fortune. It seemed such a prov- 
idential call that 1 could not refuse. I at once decided that no 
wiser use of the money could be made than by appropriating it 
mainly to the cause of Christian education. Mrs. Stone readily 
accepted my advice, and the funds of our colleges and seminaries 
were increased by nearly a million dollars." 

CORNELIUS B. ERWIN, OF NEW BRITAIN, CT. 

m his munificent charities Mr. Erwin remembered Iowa Col- 
lege, with others made the residuary legatees. The manager of 
the estate predicts that our share of the fund will be at from 
$25,000 to ,$50,000, It is an instance of forecast by a great man- 
ufacturer and warm friend of the American system. 

Mr. Erwin truly lent dignity to the manufacturer, personally 
won the hearts of his townsmen, and made the church with Avhich 
he was associated and many educational institutions his debtors 
for gifts never to be forgotten. 

OTHER BENEFACTORS. 

Most fortunate is our state, so rich in nature and advancing 
with rapid stride under high social and moral conditions, in enlist- 
ing so eminent a roll of benefactors, for its first Christian college. 
I shall mention the names of many, in the hope that their spirit 
may be contagious, and in further belief that we have been derelict 
in recognition of our obligations to those who have not only given 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 341 

of their abundance but of their limited income. The small gifts 
of those omitted may outweigh the donations of thousands, while a 
mention of names will be proof that the college would honor the 
children by a remembrance of the good deeds of their fathers; gone 
to their reward. 

First and worthy of recall are those early associated with the 
founding of professorships, in an institution which they had never 
seen and a thousand miles from their homes. 

Preserve Wood Carter, a native of Wolcott, Ct., and an extens- 
ive manufacturer in Waterbury, Ct., was the founder of the Carter 
Professorship. His son, Franklin Carter, now the distinguished 
president of Williams College, wrote me, during the last year, 
facts from which I glean the following : 

''Rev. Ephraim Adams, Prof. Erastus Ripley and Rev. Julius 
A. Reed, men of Davenport, Iowa, awakened his interest in Iowa 
College, which led to a gift of five thousand dollars, while his 
entire property was not worth over fifty thousand dollars. He 
enjoyed giving, but never gave so large an amount to any other 
institution. He gave to Yale, to home missions, to foreign mis- 
sions, to churches and local charities. Everything that related to 
the West interested him. This gift was a great thing for him," 
says this son, "and I always feel that I have inherited a right to 
beg 'for this college. He was a whig and republican. My earliest 
remembrance of politics goes back to the campaign of 1844, and I 
remember standing by him as he read the New York Tribune, giv- 
ing the details of Clay's defeat. He gave utterance to the feeling 
that no more good could come to our country. He was of an ardent 
nature, a profound believer in Calvinism, and named his eldest son 
Calvin. Neither of his sons has accomplished as much, consider- 
ing all things, as he accomplished. I am very glad he gave that 
money to your college, but he died worth only about seventy-five 
thousand dollars, leaving a widow and three sons. I am the last 
of the family and I thank God for such a father and mother as I 
had." 

Ebenezer Alden, M. D., of Randolph, Mass., father of Secretary 
Alden, of the American Board, gave anatomical models, and, after 
the tornado, replaced the set with a more valuable one; also, made 
bequest of $5,000 to the college, to be increased by part of the 
interest to $10,000, as an Alden fund. 

In the East, from the estate of John C. Whitin, of Whitinsville, 



342 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

Mass. ($5,000), and. Dr. E. Alden, of Boston, money came for the 
Museum, supplemented by gifts, already mentioned, from Morris 
K. Jesup, the benevolent banker of New York, and. the late George 
H. Corliss. Wendell Phillips found, his "next friend" with a 
thousand dollars, while Deacon David Whitcomb, of Worcester, 
Deacon E. Earnsworth and Samuel Johnson, of Boston, and Wil- 
liam Hyde, of Ware, Mass., on more than one occasion in extremity 
came to our relief. 

The burning of East College was a heavy blow which enlisted 
new friends, among whom were James F. Joy, of Detroit, Nathaniel 
Thayer, of Boston, and B. E. Allen, of Des Moines, each giving a 
check for a thousand dollars, followed by smaller sums from J. W. 
Brooks, John N. Dennison and H. H. Hunnewell, of Boston. 

How many of our benefactors have passed away — some whom 
I have mentioned, and others who were also large givers. How 
fatally wide the scythe of time has swept, thinning their ranks. 
W. E. Dodge, David Dows and S. B. Chittenden, of New York, 
John E. Slater, of Norwich, Ct., Ethan Eogers, of New Jersey, 
Wendell Phillips, J. Nickerson, Deacon David Whitcomb and Dea- 
con Ezra Earnsworth, of Massachusetts, and Frederick Billings, of 
Vermont, have during the last eight years gone to their reward. 

lOWA BENEFACTORS. 

These are numerous. The earlier gifts were by self-denial, the 
later meaning less of sacrifice, but prompted by confidence in the 
college and a conviction that a religious college was one of the 
chief demands of the state. The zeal of our patrons is not to be 
estimated by small subscriptions, but in association with numer- 
ous other gifts and enlightened Christian zeal. 

SENATOR AND GOVERNOR JAMES W. GRIMES 

was peculiarly an adviser and friend, supplementing his interest in 
popular education by the gift of a valuable section of land, to 
which Mrs. Grimes has added money, making a total sum of ten 
thousand dollars. Governor Grimes was pleased with the rural 
central location of the college, and predicted that it would at an 
early day rival our best eastern institutions. He provided that 
promising students should be aided by his gifts, in perpetuity. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 343 

REV. JOB CUSHMAN 

was a lineal descendent of Robert Cushman, deceased in 1625, who 
preached the first sermon printed in America. Its subject was 
" The sin and danger of self-love ", and it was dated 1621. It was 
at an early day that he came to Grinnell, and he is remembered as 
a singular character, of warm attachments and decided conviction. 
In the East a pastor for nearly a half century, he had witnessed 
the struggles of poor clergymen, and was pained at their neglect 
in old age.* In the town of Chester, near Grinnell, he made an 
entry of a large tract of land, from the profits of which he estab- 
lished a fund for poor ministers. Iowa College, later, awakened 
his sympathy, and he gave a liberal sum toward ornamenting the 
campus, and other moneys amounting to six or seven thousand 
dollars, in bequest on his death. Old age ended his career and he 
was buried in our cemetery after affectionate care for him in his 
sickness. The college erected a suitable marble testimonial to his 
memory. 

CHARLES F. DYKE. 

This gentleman, an eastern manufacturer, fortunately for Iowa 
College married the daughter of the Rev. S. L. Herrick (now Mrs. 
J. M. Chamberlain), early a professor and for a quarter of a cen- 
tury a trustee of the college. Mr. Dyke was a large-hearted 
philanthropist, and the needs of the colored people at the South 
awakened his attention while living, and, at death, his bequests 
amounted to a large sum. His stay in our city was not long, ill- 
health requiring a change to the Pacific coast. His dust, however, 
reposes here in Hazelwood Cemetery. He was a noble character; 
and some seven or eight thousand dollars came from his estate to 
our almost empty treasury. The kindly oifices of Mr. Herrick and 
his daughter, Mrs. Dyke, here deserve grateful mention. 

REV. J. M. CHAMBERLAIN. 

Apart from gifts, there are few persons who have been longer 
associated with the institution, and none in more honorable service, 
than Rev. J. M. Chamberlain. For nearly twenty years he was 
treasurer, and now is acting librarian, not prompted by a salary, 



344 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

rather by the impulses of a scholar. On the board of control for 
twenty-five years his counsels have been marked by conservatism, 
together with vigilance and wisdom. 

The scheme for a circle of ladies' cottages was especially cham- 
pioned by Mr. Chamberlain, but involved a plat of ground which 
the college did not own. The tornado wrecked his home in the 
midst of a vacant square adjoining the campus, and he transformed 
his calamity into a gift of benevolence — a ladies' campus annex to 
be improved and occupied. The gift was large and opportune, and 
a reflection of the generosity of one who at the corner-stone dedi- 
cation, in clear and winning speech, won most hearty plaudits. 
The generosity of our friend and his wife will find a heartier appre- 
ciation in the lapse of time, when a fine group of buildings in good 
service shall crown the aspirations of the givers. 

SETH RICHARDS. 

This gentleman of Yankee birth was broadened by the pioneer 
activities and environments related to an eventful career. It is 
thirty -five years since, on a Sunday morning, he left the stage-coach, 
walking miles to reach our prairie school-house in sight, to become 
a worshipper rather than a stage-traveler. He became my guest, 
and, after listening to our educational plans, said, " My ideal town 
will have a church, and the model state a Christian college." 
This was in keeping with his early agency in determining a site for 
the college, eventually located at Davenport. The public is in 
doubt, alike as to the sum of Mr. Richards' benefactions and of his 
total wealth ; but it is no mere guess that his gifts have been large 
and discriminating, and that he is one of the few wealthy men of 
our state. Bentonsport, Iowa, has for near fifty years been nom- 
inally his home. Later, in Oakland, Cal., he has erected a mansion 
(from which his esteemed wife has just passed away to her reward), 
in view of an institution of learning, which is said to have shared 
largely in his benefactions. I do not even venture an opinion as 
to the measure of his charities, but recall how welcome was the 
announcement that the gift of the Christian philanthropist was 
$20,000, the income of which was to be used in perpetuity for 
the Richards professorship of Iowa College. Bravely does our 
friend meet the infirmities of an octogenarian, while maintaining 
a lively interest in our temperance issue, and the success of that 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 345 

party which he has ever upheld for its devotion to the American 
financial policy, not less than to its constitutional guarantees for 
the freedmen. 

EX-GOV. SAMUEL MERRILL AND J. H. MERRILL, 

The interest of these brothers in Iowa College dates back to 
ante-bellum times, when residents of MacGregor, Iowa. After the 
tornado, Mr. J. H. Merrill, a Christian financier of the highest 
rank, aided in restoring our wastes in the sum of $5,000, since 
added to by liberal amounts and expenditure of time and thought 
in the interests of the institution, of which he has long been a 
trustee, and from which his son and daughter have graduated' 
with honor. At a late day the Ex-Governor handed me a proposal 
and obligation to found a professorship in the sum of $20,000. 
Bonds and stocks have been passed to the treasury as an earnest 
of the good faith of the donor. Mr. Merrill served the state 
officially with great credit, and has been successfully engaged in 
railway construction and as president of the Citizens' Bank, Des 
Moines. The precarious health of Mrs. Merrill, deceased, and of 
their son, required a change of climate, and he is, we trust, only 
temporarily a resident of Eialto, California. 

EDWIN MANNING. 

The name of this gentleman, a resident of Keosauqua, Iowa, 
has been as a household word in the Des Moines valley for nearly 
fifty years. My first vote in Iowa was cast for him as a state 
officer. It was his last official trust, for he often declined promo- 
tion, while in the varied roll of pioneer land-owner, merchant and 
banker, his policies have been wise, and in executions of great 
trusts he has shown that fidelity and broad patriotism which gave 
him high rank as a war-patriot. The millionaires of the dark 
hours among whom he is classed, were esteemed the cautious. 
Not of this class was Mr. Manning, who offered of his money and 
his credit to equip the soldiers, when compelled to decline a field 
office in our late war. Mr. Manning, now passed his four-score 
years, is full of vigor and takes a lively interest in the great moral, 
social and financial questions of his time, being an ardent repub- 
lican. Eepeated have been his gifts to Iowa College, now 



346 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

expanded to a tract of land in Iowa of the value of f 20,000, 
which the guardians of that institution will regard the more highly 
for the eminent character of the donor. 



LEONARD F. PARKER. 

It was by a good fortune before mentioned, that Professor and 
Mrs. Parker became associated with Grinnell University, and later 
with Iowa College. The invitations to become a professor in the 
State University at Iowa City were earnest and prolonged, resulting 
in an absence of twenty years, greatly to the advantage of another 
institution, while our loss was in corresponding measure. He 
returned to us with native enthusiasm, to fill the chair of his 
choice. Was it in memory of labors and sacrifices here, that here 
in our cemetery reposes the sacred dust of his children, and that the 
warm devotion of long and partial friends overcame all obstacles 
to a return, to take up the congenial labors of his early life. Such 
may seem the three-fold cord to allure and bind. There are other 
facts, not now for the public, which are significant of the generos- 
ity of a friend and his devotion to the college. Professor Parker, 
in addition to faculty service, is officially appointed to write an 
educational history of Iowa, which can but be of interest to her 
youth and their guardians, while the freshness and vigor of his 
occasional addresses and sermons, cause an exhaustive demand upon 
his time. 

The Leonard P. Parker professorship is as assured as the solid- 
ity of our finances and the perpetuity of our institution. 

ALONZO STEELE. 

If true that " a prophet is not without honor save in his own 
country ", it is not always true that a college is not held in honor 
at home. 

Mr. Steele, of Arcade, N. Y., a farmer and manufacturer, was 
attracted to Grinnell by the college, on which he has bestowed a 
gift of f 20,000. This home endorsement is of peculiar signifi- 
cance and value, for its founders were his friends ; the finances 
were managed with business care, while a corps of able professors 
won his regard not less than the students and graduates. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 347 

Our friend is yet robust, at over seventy years, and takes a 
lively interest in public affairs, while the prosperity of the college 
is a welcome theme. Says the generous giver, ''When I saw- 
plainly the path of duty I had the decision to walk in it. Leav- 
ing large amounts to children often brings more evil than good. 
I was not permitted to have a liberal education, and have often 
felt the want of it, and it will be a pleasure while I live, to see the 
graduates starting out, and to know that they can speak and act 
well, after we have passed away." 

The name of the professorship is only an incident to its found- 
ing and value, yet most appropriate. There was a daughter, Myra, 
a lovely character, who passed away when budding into the beauty 
of womanhood. Her life was a cherished memory, now enshrined 
in the endowment of the Myra Steele Professorship. 

Other townsmen might be added to this list if it were permit- 
ted to mention their names. Mr. L. N. Sherman is not spared in 
life to protest, and his memory is fragrant in association with early 
gifts, and a later one of $1,000, supplemented by a generous pro- 
vision of his will, which in a contingency leaves a large sum to 
the college. He well represented the many intelligent and noble 
people of our adjoining Christian town of Chester, which has not 
only given material aid in our needs, but also sent hither many of 
our best students. 

LADY DONORS. 

The " Lords " are not alone the recipients of the honors of wise 
stewardship. 

Mrs. Rand, of Burlington, Iowa, is one of our later but not less 
valued friends. Her husband, the late Hon. E. D. Rand, held the 
place of one of Iowa's most liberal givers to the church; and as 
legislator, financier, was one of our noblemen. Iowa College was 
in his thoughts, but he could safely leave the disposition of prop- 
erty to one so long of his spirit, and who, on the death of a favor- 
ite grandson, has made a gift in memorial for the founding of the 
Gear Professorship, the sum being f 25,000. Coincident it is our 
further good fortune to elect the son a trustee. He brings the 
guarantees of the career of an educated gentleman that the fam- 
ily trust-fund will be well expended, and the weal of the college 
promoted. 



348 REMINISCENCES OF FOBTT TEARS. 



MRS. LAVINIA PIERCE. 



This lady was of Cummington, Mass., and twenty years ago 
gave $1,000 for a ladies' educational fund, from which has flowed 
a rill refreshing the spirit and smoothing the way for indigent 
but worthy lady students. 



MRS. WILLIAM E. DODGE. 



This generous benefactor has supplemented the $10,000 given 
by her husband in the sum of f 1200, the income of which is 
appropriated to students of promise. 



MRS. R. D, STEPHENS. 

The widoAv of an honored trustee, to whose place she was 
elected, she, with the same spirit, has made repeated and liberal 
gifts. Her home is in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. 

MRS. HARRIET B. SCOTT, 

the wife of one of our early pioneers, and now at an advanced age, 
has seen great good flowing from the early generosity of herself 
and her husband, Mr. Anor Scott, and has made the college a gift 
of several thousand dollars. 

In concluding the names of our noble friends, there is one, a 
character whose name, if I were permitted to write it, has a sacred 
designation in doing "more than they all". The long roll given 
mainly represents those who have given of their abundance, while 
the founder of the Ellwood fund gave of his living. But who is 
he ? His name and benefactions must be unknown until the ear is 
deaf to human praise. Bowed with years and trembling, he leans 
on a staff. In the circle of prayer he is heard in broken emotional 
accents. Copious tears flow on the mention of good news for the 
college. He waits patiently to end his pilgrimage, following his 
family to the home beyond. His large gifts came almost without 
suggestion, and in the reflection that a feeble old man had long 
rested on a Divine arm, and that hojue bereavement made it possi- 
ble in the exercise of faith to link the departed Ellwood with those 
who should preach that gospel which for more than a half century 
had been the giver's solace and trust. This is the Christian 



BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 349 

mechanic whose poverty compels frugality, and whose threadbare 
clothing hides the heart of a nobleman, never weary in the men- 
tion of the love of Christ, nor fearful of hunger though made poor 
by pecuniary sacrifices which in the education of others may bring 
delight to him and honor to his Saviour. 

OUR RELATIONS TO THE STATE UNIVERSITY. 

As the oldest collegiate institution this side of the Mississippi, 
Iowa College has a right to exist, and independently ; and it will 
so continue. There is room for the State University, with post 
graduate and special courses, in accord with the popular ideas. 
There is, also, a field large enough for denominational colleges. It 
has been cultivated without unseemly rivalry and friction. With 
these advantages, tax-payers are restive under their indirect 
burdens in educating lawyers, now too numerous, and in support of 
certain schools of medicine, when the public demand may be met 
without state aid. The present policy savors of favoritism and 
cannot in reason long survive the edicts of popular opinion. 

Then there has emanated, from those enjoying state patronage, 
an unseemly decryiijg of the colleges, with a proposition to mass all 
in an overshadowing university to lessen cost and gain the fame of 
an Oxford. Without questioning the motives of the agitators, I 
deprecated the scheme as Utopian, using this language : 

" It must be only a wild and chimerical scheme, the bringing of 
four thousand students together, involving an appropriation of a 
million of dollars for buildings, and tens of thousands annually for 
instrvictors, which could find no advocates save in a locality, or by 
those depreciating the scholarship in the colleges and indifferent 
save in the advocacy of a scheme where there should be no relig- 
ious basis. 

''The suggestion is at once chimerical and revolting. Fathers 
and mothers ask not how cheap is the college, but what strength 
will it bring ; how high a standard in morals, and what perils will 
be escaped. Iowa colleges are founded in the philosophy of the 
fathers, and have been and will be cherished with the devotion of 
Christian patriots. As a rule the attractions of education have 
secured electic afiinities, the localizing of families whose virtuous 
execration, joined with instincts of self preservation, have made 
the saloon and correlated infamies to share the fate of hated 



350 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

exotics. No, no, owls and bats sliall never occupy our vacated 
college halls at the behest of jealously false economy, or the dic- 
tation of pedantry and shallow statecraft. Founders, who watched 
college growth with a devotion kindred to that felt for their chil- 
dren, shall not live to witness such perversity, nor will the van- 
dalism toppling the shafts in the cemetery and defaming the 
names of our honored dead, be imitated by even grosser acts of sac- 
rilege in razing the college walls made vocal with the grateful 
praise of occupants, fitted and schooled therein for life's toils by 
the generous founders of professorships, whose fame and fortune 
can never be clouded and absorbed in a state pool. 

"But this is the crowning consideration and fatal to the 
scheme. You cannot hide the deformity of the old lie, that there 
can be the highest and completest education without a thoroughly 
religious influence. ' Sectarianism,' often unjustly charged upon 
Christian colleges, is another thing, and has been carefully avoided 
by Iowa College." 

A COLLEGE TRUST. 

I may be somewhat singular in the views I here offer, but it is 
more than a conviction ; it is a fact that ninety-nine hundredths of 
our funds came from the adherents of a national protective policy, 
who believed that their prosperity was due to it. What trustee, 
remembering this, can be indifferent to a palpable, implied obliga- 
tion? Where can be found a real excuse for a divergence vmtil 
there is an essential change in our commercial relations ? What 
else would it be than a grave dereliction and reproach to the dead, 
and an offense to their kindred. 

It does not meet the case to say, <' There is a toleration of the 
silent patrons and Ave give all sides ". No ! he that is not for is 
against, in a sharp issue. Certainly there has been no doubt as to 
the instruction in political economy in Iowa College in the past; 
it must have been a great controlling fact in the minds of some of 
our benefactors. Strict fidelity, then, in the use of trust funds will 
not overlook the known wishes of testator and friend, though not 
written. There will be more than respect for the prudent and 
sagacious patrons who, if permitted to speak, would execrate a 
departure for which there is no excuse found in radical and 
changed economical relations. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

The Tornado of 1882 — Descriptive Incidents — Relation to the 
Totvn — Visit to Princely Givers — Personals. 

Eeminiscences of the Grinnell tornado may be prefaced with 
one of the most vivid descriptions, of which there were hundreds, 
of this direful storm. It is from the pen of Rev. David 0. Mears 
D. D., of Worcester, Mass. He, as the Iowa college orator for 
that year, was on the ground, and not only witnessed the desola- 
tion, but stimulated the courage of those who were enlisted in the 
work of restoration. 

THE TORNADO. 

j "The 17th of June, 1882, in Grinnell, was a day of terror 

I and of death. All through the sunshine the sky seemed a cur- 
tain, above which the intolerable heat could not find a vent. Not 

I a breath of air moved even the topmost leaves of the highest trees. 
The grass, parched by the burning heat, rustled like silk, beneath 
the tread of men who ventured upon their errands. Even the chil- 
dren gave way to the oppressiveness of the day, and waited for the 
sun to set. The cattle sought the shade of the trees, but panted 
for breath, as if between them and the sun there was no foliage. 

\ They sniffed the air in fear of what men did not see. The birds 
winged a hurried flight before the storm-clouds for safety. 

"The evening gave no rest. From an hour before sunset, hurry- 
ing clouds banked the western sky. These clouds, colored with 
green and yellow and crimson, swayed to and fro in malignant 
shape, arresting attention through their fantastic changes. As if 
to keep company with such furies, a rising gale swept the heated 
streets and homes. At eight o'clock, after the sunset, the huge 
clouds put on their deepest black, as of mourning for what was to 



352 liEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

come. Following a fierce thunder-gust of rain, and a brief, deathly 
calm, at a quarter past eight, the black funnel-shaped cloiid was 
seen making its awful course. Within its sable folds the caged 
lightnings were at their horrid play. Almost in a moment of 
time there was the fearful terror of blackness and the deadly 
roar — and all was still as if the shrill whistling train of death, 
were passed. 

" There was only death and ruin left in its track, save where 
people had hidden in cellars, some of whom were yet prisoners 
beneath the debris. Buildings had been tossed like egg shells 
from their foundations. Freight trains with many cars had been 
seized by the fiery hands and tossed off the track. The ponderous 
locomotive had been lifted from its standing place as children toss 
their toys. Trees within its track were twisted from their roots, 
some one way, and some another, by the electric forces in their 
havoc and play. The spokes of wheels were twisted from their 
hubs by a process no man has discovered. Carriages were lifted 
from the street and lodged in the tops of trees. Human beings 
were seized by the terrible blast and carried away hundreds of 
feet, and left among the ruins that had covered from sight the 
streets and gardens. Huge timbers were driven deep into the 
earth as no ponderous hammers could drive them. The college 
buildings of stone and brick were crumbled under the crunching 
hand of destruction. For the width of a quarter of a mile, the 
prostrated ruins were a monument of death. Thirty-two dead 
bodies were left as its evidences, while nearly a hundred persons 
more were seriously wounded. Soldiers, who had seen the field 
after the battle, declared the tornado an avenger even above war 
itself. The City Hall, as a morgue, revealed a power putting the 
pestilence as mortally slow." 

Never Avas destruction so met by sympathy from all sources. 
The position of the city upon the question of morals and educa- 
tion, was a reason for quickening the responses for help the coun- 
try over. Nearly a quarter of a million dollars was given in funds 
to relieve the toAvn and the college. 

The dead Avere not buried when the founder of the town started 
out for assistance. City and college were on his heart. Before 
the boards of trade in Chicago and New York he made his 
plea for the people whose interests seemed his own. Among the 
prominent churches of the land, he plead their cause. He was 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 353 

introduced to Plymouth Cliurcli, Brooklyn, by Rev. Henry Ward 
Beeclier, whose words were reported in a daily paper.* 

The greetings of the churches of the country were hearty and 
emphatic, like that of the Plymouth Church. The first substan- 
tial messages of sympathy were from the writer's life-long 
friends, William E. Dodge and Wendell Phillips. The spirit of the 
business men was signalled by that of John V. Farwell of Chicago, 
who said to his clerk, "If Grinnell does not come around for help 
to-day, send him a thousand dollars to-morrow." In Boston, it 
was the same as in New York and Chicago. Over the stricken 
city, there was a common sympathy from those whose names were 
and are a tower of strength. Autograph-seekers would find great 
joy, could they only get the signatures of the generous contribu- 
tors to the relief of our suffering town. It is somewhat indicative 
of the power of sympathy over merely church lines, that of some 
forty thousand dollars raised by the writer among his business 
acquaintances, for Iowa College, in a few months, not more than 
ten thousand came from members of the same denomination as the 
College. 

Such a universal sympathy gave courage to the desolated town. 
Upon the following week was to occur the college commencement; 
what should be done ? In reply to a telegram of inquiry from one 
who had been invited to deliver an address upon the occasion, Mr. 
Grinnell replied: "Come, and speak; church not destroyed. Col- 
lege will go on with buildings destroyed." In the city shadowed 
by the awful event of the week before, the friends of the College 

* " Not long after I came to Brooklyn I was associated with a preacher who is 
now on this iilatform, who was, however, obliged on account of failing health to 
remove from the East to the then hardly settled State of Iowa, and purchased 
large landed interests there. Mr. Grinnell has devoted his life to the welfare of 
that state, and very properly the city of Grinnell took not only his name but that 
of his ancestors in New York and Massachusetts. In that city Mr. Grinnell has 
been everything — except a bad man. (Laughter.) He has been railway receiver, 
college trustee, member of the state Senate, member of Congress, president of the 
University, but I think not anything military ; but he has been a farmer, a lawyer, 
a preacher, and everything by turns — a thoroughgoing Yankee. Largely owing, 
perhaps wholly owing to his zeal and enterprise, the college was founded in the 
city of Grinnell, and his intiuence has been felt for good all over the city and in 
every j)art of the state, and we are only waiting for him to die to make a very 
remarkable man of him ; and I hope we may wait a great many years. He comes 
before you this evening to speak, at my request, of the great temperance victory 
that has been won in Iowa, and also of the tornado disaster that has befallen that 
State, and I have much pleasure in introducing to you J. B* Grinnell, of Iowa." 



354 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

met to leave no broken commencement. The stvitlents left the 
bedsides of the injured to perform their parts. Papers of the 
injured were read by those able to do them such a service. 

Without a building upon the campus, there went forth the 
invincible spirit that of itself invited new students in good num- 
bers the coming term. While the fires were smouldering beneath 
the ruins of one building, a new cornerstone was laid with impres- 
sive services. A poem by Professor Parker was given, also an 
eloquent address by President Magoun. Then the writer was 
introduced, as a speaker. He had just returned from Chicago, 
cheered by the responses there. He declared that this was no 
time for groans. He reminded that only God had been here, who 
tempers the winds to the shorn lamb. He saw in the desolation a 
new advertisement for the college. He spoke of the older build- 
ings that were in ruins; and reminded them that the new shall 
exceed the old in beauty. With a thought of the humorous, he 
said that there were less trees on the campus than formerly. It 
seemed a rude act in the sight of some to cut away any of the 
trees; but now the storm has given sunlight. But not alone the 
sunlight; the speaker referred to the hand of the Almighty in 
this great stroke. At the same time he wished it distinctly under- 
stood that there was not one chance in twenty-five millions of a 
tornado ever striking the same place again. Heroism in the line 
of duty was stirred to its depths by his recital of the fact that the 
only uninjured thing in all that devastation was the slab, in one of 
the destroyed buildings, on which were chiselled the names of the 
dead soldiers who had left the college for the war. 

Under the azure of that beautiful sky which only a few days 
before had been swept by the terrible tempest, the resurrected col- 
lege came into view. The famous words of Marius have been 
handed down the centuries, words sent back to Rome as a confes- 
sion of his weakness : " Tell the Prsetor that you have seen Caius 
Marius, a fugitive, sitting on the ruins of Carthage." A sentiment 
like this found no place either in the city or college of Grinnell. It 
was rather the heroism of the Pilgrims by the side of the returning 
Mayflower, refusing to return even though it might save some of 
the lives not already sacrificed. 

My diary of the electric tornado of June 17, 1882, is not a 
brief one. Never in our nation's annals has there been recorded 
a more devastating track by a storm. In chronology it is the day 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 355 

and tlie month of the historic battle of Bunker Hill, June 17. 
Being a speaker for the state constitutional amendment against the 
saloon policy, I was West at the city of Atlantic that night, con- 
tending against oppressive heat, in ignorant unconcern for our peo- 
ple, where houses were wrecked and the occupants, a hundred or 
more, were maimed, and forty meeting death by the storm. A 
trivial loss was our college buildings, the pride of the town, com- 
pared to the sad fate of two noble students buried in the ruins, 
and others seriously maimed. Mr. Eoyce, superintendent of the 
Eock Island Eoad, dispatched a train for me, giving but an inti- 
mation of the extent of the ruin. While the train was making 
fifty miles an hour, my agony in fear for the fate of my family 
can better be imagined than described. Not until I reached Des 
Moines could I hear of their safety. 

It was Sunday morning when I reached home ; but few were 
the religious services in central Iowa on that day. Special trains 
on the four roads brought physicians, nurses, and thousands of the 
I curious, to crowd the blocked streets from which the maimed, the 
I dying and the dead were being removed. The part of the town 
* destroyed was much like a half moon, and for three quarters of a 
; mile one could walk on the debris. A hundred photographic views 
t were taken of the ruins, but none nor all could depict it fully. 
I Some were rescued with broken bones ; others carried into the air 
to fall lifeless. Hospital care and the burying of the dead were 
\ the first services ^ — an occasion of touching scenes never to be 
I pictured. Great was the gratitude of those who had escaped, and 
the opening of a brother's heart to the unfortunate, homeless and 
bereft of child or parents. Next was the proffered aid by hund- 
reds of strangers, supplemented by telegrams from distant friends 
I advising of drafts on the way, and words of cheer. In a mention 
of the sufferers, there was no regard to property or station — some 
of the best houses utterly destroyed, and their treasures scattered 
to the winds. Several of the well-known and substantial citizens 
were maimed, but the deaths were mainly the young and of those 
less known in society. I make exception of Deacon William Ford 
and wife, he above seventy years, remarking but a few days before 
that his work was done and he was ready to go. The venerable 
couple were borne into the air while watching the storm, falling no 
doubt lifeless. 

The front of the house of our venerable ex-mayor, L. C. Phelps, 



356 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

was entirely removed, with the rich contents of the rooms, save a 
portrait of the absent son. Prof. L. A. Phelps, of the Chicago Musi- 
cal College. That face, unremoved on the wall, lent a smile of 
hope and was an omen of cheer brought by his early presence and 
that of devoted and liberal kindred. 

Twenty-nine were borne from the Congregational church to 
Hazlewood cemetery in one day. There was no lack of the best 
medical aid for the maimed ; and those engaged in the work of 
restoration began making shelters for the homeless. 

The Clarkson Brothers, of the State Register, gave a most full 
and graphic account of the disaster, and, like most of the press, 
sent liberal contributions in relief. Governor Sherman made a 
state and national appeal. Even early in the morning, Hon. Eze- 
kiel Clark, of Iowa City, with emotion and tears said, as we met, 
"Here is five hundred dollars". This, by one so well known, stim- 
ulated bankers, cities and companies of farmers to great liberality. 
Nearly one hundred and fifty thousand dollars came into the hands 
of Mayor Perry and the committee. This is a larger sum than all 
the kindred calamities in the West for years before or since have 
received in charities for like sufferers. For this no one person can 
take the credit — it was sweet charity, and a tribute to the charac- 
ter of the town with a temperance history, and the seat of Iowa 
'College attractive to elevated citizensliip. There was no scandal 
in the collection or disbursement of funds, and I think no one made 
a charge for financial agency in their collection, which reflects the 
highest honor on the part of the local committees. Our maimed 
and the dead can never pass out of the thought of the living, nor 
can the spared cease to wonder that so beautiful homes could so 
soon rise on the ruins. It is a great fact that the greatest era of 
the city's prosperity dates from the restoration of homes and col- 
leges. This was not possible without the courage inspired, not by 
words of sympathy alone, but by the great charities, never to be 
forgotten by the recipients. I only instance the well-built and fur- 
nished home of Professor Buck, which was in ruins. Scholars and 
brother professors said it should be restored. It was. The orator 
at commencement. Doctor Mears, gave cheer in his oration, which 
hastened the laying of the granite corner-stone for Alumni Hall 
before the weeping Jeremiahs ended their grief. 

The orator asks : " Am I wrong in saluting Iowa College a child, 
both in spirit and deed, of Pilgrim and Puritan ? Its early history 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 357 

will rank with that of Harvard and of Yale ; and as history repeats 
itself, I stand, in this time of your losses and your griefs, to say 
that in the remembrance of the dead, for every hand that built 
those now ruined walls there will be two to rebuild, and for every 
hard-earned dollar of the fathers and mothers giving it foundation, 
the children of such parents will sacrifice two." 

Mr. Thomas H. Dodge, of Worcester, Mass., then a new, 
unknown friend, being in Chicago, caught the spirit of that city 
and sent a message from his own burdened heart.* 

It becoming evident that the generous contributions could 
restore the homes of the indigent, and that the maimed would be 
well cared for, the situation of the college made a moving appeal 
for liberal aid in the restoration. There were many reasons related 
to financial and personal matters, especially prostration by nervous 
debility, which required quiet rest for me at home; but it was the 
time for action. The visit to the board of trade in Chicago, and 
encouragement from the East, caused excuses to pale before imper- 
ative and public demands. 

THE CHICAGO VISIT. 

It was Hon. John V. Farwell who showed the worth of a great 
man in the time for decisive action. The week previous I was in 
his company, visiting the herds at his Iowa farm near Montezuma. 
We had a severe yet laughable experience on the muddy roads, and 



* The following was his telegraphed message : 

Leland Hotel, Chicago, June 23d, 1882. 
President Magoun, Iowa College, Grinnell, Iowa : 

Millions of tearful eyes and sympathetic hearts will be drawn toward Grinnell 
by your heroic action on the morrow. 

Transmit to me copy of the Oration as soon as delivered, and I will have an 
edition printed for your use, that the words thereof may go forth with clarion voice 
to proclaim the great truth that the Model City of the West and Iowa College — 
ever faithful to her high and lofty mission — are not destroyed, but still live, and 
will rise again, though bowed in grief and baptized in blood, to complete their 
high and holy destiny in promoting learning, religion and good government in the 
great West, thereby rendering the name of your loved city, "Grinnell", like the 
sacred soil of "Piedmont", emblematic of sanctified Christian faith and undying 
courage, in the Master's work. 

Thos. H. Dodge. 

Then followed an elegant edition of the historic college oration, giving a wide 
knowledge of Iowa College and an eloquent plea for a restoration both in promise 
and prophecy. 



358 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

I detained him over the Sabbatli to speak to the great congregation, 
which won his friendship for the college and the town. "Visit me 
in Chicago/' said he. " I will cheerfully," was my answer, but the 
promise was fulfilled under a dark cloud. Overlooking his build- 
ing, he hailed me in the distance, to say, "Come on, I have 
heard of your calamity. What can I do besides a money check." 
"Please go with me to the board of trade," was my answer. 
"I will." As we entered. Mayor Harrison, and Mr. Dunham, 
president of the board, said, " You have struck it. Get Mr. Far- 
well to speak." This was his speech : 

" Gentlemen, our neighboring state has been visited by one of 
the most dreadful storms on record. I was at the beautiful city 
of Grinnell last week, founded by the gentleman who is at my side. 
It is a model college town. It must not suffer by our neglect. 
This is no time for speeches, but for sympathy which reaches the 
pocket. I must go, but here is my check for one thousand dollars, 
with regrets that I must leave to keep a distant appointment. 
Iowa did not forget Chicago in ashes, and we muot cheerfully 
reciprocate." 

The following is the substance of the Press report : 

MAYOR HARRISON" 



said that on the floor of that board it was said that corn was king, but in Iowa the 
storm had ruled it over corn. They could not succeed there if Iowa was in dis- 
tress. They owed it to themselves to respond liberally to the cry that came to 
them for help. They had the reputation of being enterprising and large hearted, 
and for nothing liad they a better reputation than for charitable deeds. By the 
tornado $500,000 liad been destroyed, forty men, women and children had been 
killed and 100 were dangerously wounded. He had been requested to introduce to 
them a gentleman from Grinnell. It was true Iowa was another state, but the 
people of Chicago recognized no state line. He had told Mr. Grinnell that the 
proper way to get the thing started was to get the board of trade started, and 
then there was no danger of failure. If there were failure let it be charged to him. 
He had great pleasure in introducing to them 

HON. J. B. GRINNELL, 

of Grinnell city, Iowa, who said : 

I thank the president of the board of trade and the honorable mayor for 
their kind introduction and cheering words. The words of sorrow are few. I 
come from an appalling calamity by a tornado in Iowa, desolating everything in 
its way for 200 miles, centering its fury on the city of Grinnell, a place of 3,000 
people, 300 miles west of Chicago. One hundred and twenty buildings were 
swept down in the tempest, many of them homes of taste and comfort, a large 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 359 

portion homesteads and representing with household goods the entire property of 
the owners — the two spacious college buildings with their contents, libraries, 
cabinets, etc., representing more than $100,000. But all this is trivial to the loss 
of life and the maiming of 100 persons, causing our city to be a hospital, while 
many brave spirits with broken limbs and bruised bodies hover between life and 
death. 

I will not stir your blood with harrowing details. My voice fails me. His- 
tory furnishes no such desolation of a city in an hour, causing a loss of from 
$400,000 to SCOOjOOO. My plea is for the maimed, the homeless and the poor, beg- 
gared in an hour, and they are hundreds, good citizens, and even brave in the 
midst of the loss of property and of their loved ones. 

I come to brave Chicago, risen from the ashes. Your desolation, which moved 
the world, was not like ours. There were treasures in your safes ; you had insur- 
ance. We had none. Our losses by death and maiming were greater than yours, 
and I do not forget that in the midst of your sorrow the good people of my city 
never slept until they loaded cars for the relief of your poor. 

Our interests are blended by an annual trade of hundreds of millions, and we 
cannot turn a furrow that is not to your commercial interest. The Des Moines 
State Register has made an eloquent appeal to the nation, and Governor Sherman 
has made a touching call for aid, and I leave all to your generosity, in ministering 
to the unfortunate who are dumb. We want a hundred car-loads of lumber, nails, 
hardware, furniture and clothing of all kinds, and one hundred thousand dollars 
in cash at once. May Heaven move generous Chicago to aid us in our purpose to 
rebuild the college, and never rest until every family has a home reared on the 
desolation. I trust you will burden the railway trains, on their generous offer 
to bear your benefactions free to the wounded and unfortunate poor, and my beau- 
tiful city and all on the track of the tornado will take heart under the raven wing 
of desolation and horrors I cannot relate. 

Great as was our indebtedness to other cities, like Minneapolis 
and Des Moines, the f 500 by Hon. Ezekiel Clark, of Iowa City, 
was the key-note for Iowa; and $1,000 by Mr. Farwell, of Chi- 
cago, became an inspiration. Hon. W. J. Pope, grain-broker and 
merchant, was most active and efficient in the lead and direction 
of committees, which ensured nearly f 20,000 from Chicago for the 
sufferers. Then the fire insurance companies, with risks on our 
colleges, generously waived technicalities, and for loss of the 
contents of the colleges, passed to us several thousand dollars. 
They could have shielded themselves under court decisions that 
exempted them from liability when buildings take fire after 
falling. Of citizens, H. W. Parker alone had tornado insurance. 

COLLEGE RESTORATION. 

I am to mention friends. If he gives twice who gives promptly 
then by the record Mr. E,. E. Sears, of Marshalltown, a college 
trustee and graduate, who gave the first $1,000, has special honor. 



360 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

He was then engaged in a large manufacturing business, and has 
since been in honorable association with gentlemen in securing the 
Soldiers' Home at Marshalltown, and now with capitalists in the 
control of large coal properties, which give promise of competence. 

Hon. William E. Dodge, of New York, and Wendell Phillips, as 
already said, sent words of cheer by wire and advised of drafts on 
the way. On their warm invitations to come East, I started. 

Mr. Ethan Kogers, of Ocean Grove, New Jersey, I found at his 
home, and he gave me his dividend in our Grinnell Bank, for about 
seven hundred and fifty dollars, most cheerfully. Mr. Dodge, 
anticipating my visit, had left word at his office that I should fol- 
low him and spend the night at Irvington, his home on the Hud- 
son. It was my good fortune to meet Mr. and Mrs. Dodge at 
the station. Their welcome, charming society and elegant home, 
beguiled away the hours, in talking of our great calamity. Some 
years before he had become interested in the college, and had 
passed through Iowa to admire our town. Its temperance stand- 
ard was of esjDecial interest to him. 

Mr. John I. Blair, his business associate and my friend, I men- 
tioned as not to be found. " He must be seen," said Mr. Dodge, 
"and please excuse me." Soon returning, he read a letter to Mr, 
Blair which was truly an emotional, grand appeal. "It will do 
our friend so much good," he remarked, " to give, and I have read 
this to Mrs. Dodge, and we have prayed that you may be spared to 
hand it to him, and I have asked for it God's blessing." After 
evening prayer, he said, " I retire early, but I am up with the birds 
and the sun, to look out on our Hudson, so refreshing to me in its 
scenes and stories of an early day ; and the berries you must join 
me in picking, the best, I think, you ever saw." 

Long were the night watches, and, burdened with my mission 
and thought of home, there was little rest; yet I joined Mr. Dodge 
in the morning, who delighted me with his cheer. No word had 
he intimated as to his personal gift, and at the table he bade me 
look up, for God reigns. On a removal in exchange of the first 
plate, I had occasion to credit it, with a smile, in recognition of a 
check of $5,000 for the college, found under a napkin. Mrs. 
Dodge, with her warm motherly heart, said, as the strawberries 
were passed, "Large as they are, they may relish better if sweet- 
ened by my joining Mr. Dodge with a thousand dollars, to help the 
worthy young girls." Her gift was twelve hundred, the interest of 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 361 

which is to be in perpetuity for lady students. Tliis sum she sup- 
plemented later by another thousand, and, still later, by hundreds 
on solicitation of Mrs. Professor Crow. To their generosity I was 
dumb, but the visit resulted in lifting a cloud which hung over me, 
drear and dark up to that hour. 

Henry Ward Beecher I had missed, but his warm welcome to 
visit his church and speak he had committed to my long-time 
friend, S. V. White, with whom I had often been a guest. He was 
a former lowan, now with national fame as a stock-broker and a 
member of Congress, On Brooklyn Heights he maintains a pri- 
vate observatory and telescope, and has the refined tastes of a 
scholar, savant and patron of education. His gift of f 1,000, with- 
out solicitation, had in it far more than the face value of that sum, 
for it gave me the desired entree to a circle of millionaires. I was 
quite safe in the wake of his example, if not in the arena of bro- 
kers and bankers, whereof our friend is a bold leader. 

Mr. Beecher, if singular in his theological evolution ideas, was 
peculiar in the warmth of an invitation to his pulpit. I made an 
address in the evening at Plymouth Church, after his introduction 
before noticed, which I regarded as a facetious offset to my intro- 
duction of him in Iowa with his subject " Hard Times ", of which 
he knew nothing, of course, personally, yet a fit theme to display 
his imaginative genius. 

The following was the address, as reported: 

The recent tornado was a terrible visitation. It was heralded by a few 
moments of rumbling, sounding not unlike the moving of a heavy train of cars, 
with immense clouds seen forcing their way for an liour or two, to leave in its way 
desolation and death. Its course was from the north-west in a track a quarter of a 
mile wide, and swept on south-easterly for about two hundred miles, and it is 
believed that the destruction will cause a loss of about two million dollars. The 
greatest destruction was in my immediate vicinity. Horses and cattle were taken 
up and borne away in the air. When it struck my own town it tore down one 
hundred buildings. There were one hundred persons wounded, their limbs broken 
and so bruised and mutillated they could scarcely be recognized by their friends. 
Thirty of my neighbors, my dear friends, were buried in a single day, and when I 
left my home it seemed as though I left a hospital, so many were wounded. All 
our homes are crowded, for three hundred persons were left homeless, but they had 
kind neighbors and friends who did all in their power for their immediate comfort. 
But such horror! such desolation! Oh, I have no heart to speak of it! Men and 
women of advanced years were whirled through the air for one hundred feet or 
more and dropped dead. The air was filled with electricity, and the very watch 
springs were broken by the force of the electric fluid. The colleges, the pride of 
my heart, where were gathered three hundred and fifty brave boys and beautiful 
girls, were swept down. Forty persons were killed, not to mention those who may 



362 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

have gone to their long rest in my absence. This is a matter of grave and serious 
concern to me, and I never expect to rest until our poor are housed, until the 
maimed are provided for, and until those colleges are rebuilt. I cannot do it. "We 
cannot do it. God does not ask us to do it. We sent out our appeal, and before I 
left home I signed over seventy responsive checks and drafts. The employes of 
the New York Herald sent a bountiful sum, and many publishers of other papers. 

Mr. Beecher. — Tell about your own town. There has not been any liquor sold 
there for twenty-eight years. 

Mr. Grinnell. — I don't deny that I am the man Horace Greeley told to go 
West. I took up a large tract of land ; but not from mercenary motives. My first 
business was to lay out a town and I determined that no intoxicating liquors 
should be sold there, and up to this time I may say that not one drop of ardent 
spirits has ever been sold upon that tract of land. I began three miles away from 
any house, and three years ago when we had om* quarter centennial celebration, 
we made the declaration that God had been wonderfully with us. No fire had 
desolated a human habitation, no man had found his way to the poor house, not 
one had gone to the jail, and not one to the state prison. [Applause]. And hap- 
pening to be mayor of the city for the last two years, I will say there was only one 
person brought before me and lined for drunkenness, and during the campaign 
which has just closed we were made a special point of attack by the enemies of 
temperance. Money was sent there and transient persons who had no visible 
means of support, but they could not demoralize our people. 

Mr. Beecher. — Do not forget the Chinese. 

Mr. Grinnell. — No, we received a draft for three hundred dollars from China- 
men for the poor sufferers in Grinnell. [Loud applause.] Mr. Beecher shouted, 
" Put them out. What business have the almond-eyed heathens here giving their 
money in charity?" [Cheers.] It is a great work we have undertaken, but I 
believe that beautiful city will, with God's blessing, be rebuilt. Those wlio have 
been temperate, honest and frugal, they shall be cared for. Hundreds of persons 
escaped by going into their cellars, and when the college fell it engulfed tw o boys 
and one beautiful girl, who were preparing for work. Let me close by saying that 
my great friend here (Mr. Beecher) and the nation's church shall bo allied with 
the resurrection of that place. And let it be known on earth and in Heaven that 
Plymouth Church and its people have not forgotten those whom storms have 
desolated. [Loud applause.] 

The meeting was a success. It advertised the calamity and my 
mission, apart from a generous collection taken and the $1,000 by 
IVIr. White, svipplemented by other sums from IVIr. Moses S. Beach, 
William Marshall, General Duryea, and others. 

RAILWAY MAGN^ATES. 

Fortunately an early connection with the Chicago and Rock 
Island Eoad, and later with local enterprises, gave me an easy 
access to friends. While in Chicago I solicited through Superin- 
tendent Riddle, as our college is built on his line of road, five or 
ten thousand dollars in freighting. He referred me to Mr. David 
Dows, of New York, chairman of the board, whom I had known 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 363 

many years, having sent my clips of wool from Iowa to his com- 
mission house. By Mr. Dows I was received with great cordiality, 
and he said — 

"I favor your request, and I will see the committee, but just 
let me give you a thousand dollars, as I do not choose to ask the 
company to do what I will not aid personally." 

The Eock Island Company's donation was $5,000, afterAvard 
increased to $6,000, besides freighting large donations without 
charge. 

I next called on President C. P. Huntington, of the California 
and Central Eailroads. It was not possible to gain an audience at 
the rooms in the Mills Building against the denials and rebuffs of 
the door-keeper, yet a promise that sometime Mr. Huntington 
should see my card. While the door was ajar, on the retiring of 
some official, I continued the plea with some persistency that my 
presence should be known there. 

"I know that voice," called out Mr. Huntington. ''Let him 
in — certainly. They say men have their prices, but I never heard 
that you had one," referring, I presume, to scandals in Washington, 
and the railway lobby. "What a wicked set you must be out in 
Grinnell, to need such a storm ! " 

Of course I could only reply that it was from the West, and if 
there was anything in desert, California would have a visit. 
"Nothing in it, nor true that lightning don't strike twice in one 
place- — -I know it does," said Mr. Huntington. "You have a 
beautiful city, seen as I have been through Iowa, and had I known 
who it was at the door, my messenger would not have detained 
you. Let me give you some help in building the College" — and 
his name and check were for $1,000, with an apology, saying 
that I could call again. 

Gen. G. M. Dodge, as an lowan of high fame, with character- 
istic promptness made his check for $1,000, Hon. Russell Sage, 
well-known, one of the largest operators in New York, who has 
railway interests in Iowa, followed General Dodge Avith $1,000. 
My business relations with him had been large and pleasant. 

I was not fortunate in finding others known to me in the city, 
and proceeded to Worcester, Mass., by invitation of Messrs. Wash- 
burn & Moen. To the country they are known as the most 
extensive manufacturers of steel wire in the Avorld. They gave 
$1,000 for the town, and $1,000 for the college. Their interest 



364 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

was further shown in handing me an introductory letter to Mr. 
J. F. Slater, of Norwich, Conn., whose princely gift of |1,000,000 
for the education of the poor in the South had just been made 
public. 

I esteem it a good fortune to have conversed with so calm and 
sympathetic a stranger. His philosophy of giving was original. 
"Let me put down $1,000 — if I were to make the sum larger it 
might keep back others who should have a share in restoration for 
their own good, apart from aid to the College." Eising, he said, 
"I have two friends in the library — please let me call them — 
you want the blessing to go round." They were Mr. Moses H. 
Pierce and Henry B. Norton, who without solicitation added $500 
to the gift of Mr. Slater, he urging me to partake of his hospitality 
then or any time. 

I omitted to say that Deacon David Whitcomb, a noble soul of 
Worcester, had, on hearing of the tornado, sent on $1,000, and 
later gave $600, to aid ladies who had suffered by the storm. 

From Boston, Deacon Farnsworth, of Park Street church, and 
Mr. Samuel Johnson, of the Old South, had forwarded a handsome 
sum, as did Mr. John N. Dennison, increasing our obligation to 
a noble philanthropist. Thomas Nickerson gave me $500, also 
Mr. H. H. Hunnewell, in continuation of personal friendship for 
years. 

Hon. Frederick Billings, of Vermont, I met in New York. 
I am reminded of a check held in his hand, being a part of the 
$100,000 given for the finest library building in the country to 
the University of Vermont, at Burlington. I could not ask his 
aid in the presence of such benefactions, yet he made me a check 
for $500 without solicitation, just like the nobleman he was. 

Hiram Sibley, of Eochester, N. Y., made me welcome. He was 
one of the largest farmers of Illinois, and the most noted producer 
of garden seeds in the Avorld. A great patron of Cornell Univers- 
ity, he was thought to be too liberalistic to have sympathy for an 
orthodox college. But he has been a free giver, and I brought 
home from his warehouse seeds to the value of $1,000, the pro- 
ceeds of which were for restoring the college museum. 

I returned to Chicago Avith good fortune in meeting with Hon. 
John I. Blair, of Blairstown, N. J. It was on Sunday and after 
church that I heard his name, for it had become his habit in order 
to escape observation to place his name on the hotel register on 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 365 

dej)arture and not on arrival. Mr. Blair, while over eighty years 
of age, bears the marks of but sixty, such is his agility in the busi- 
ness activities of a many-times millionaire. 

"That tornado of yours is surely dreadful," he remarked. "I 
received Mr. Dodge's letter ; he has been my business partner for 
thirty years, and the world has never known a warmer heart and 
such a giver ! I do well to keep half way up to him, yet of late 
have had Blairstown Seminary, Princeton and Lafayette Colleges, 
besides other things I dare not name, which make me out or in 
near a million of dollars ; still I must follow Mr. Dodge if it is a 
good way off. But what did he do ? " I answered, " Mr. Dodge 
had before given $5,000 to the college, and for our rebuilding 
gave another |5,000, to which Mrs. Dodge added |1200 for the 
girls." "Just like them — they are never so happy as when mak- 
ing checks in charity ; and he will perhaps expect me to equal his 
sum in rebuilding." Just then there was a caller, and, on learning 
that Senator William B. Allison was in the house, he said, " Bring 
him in". I kncAV that Mr. Blair thought as highly of Mr. Allison, 
perhaps, as of any man living. It thus became my policy to seek 
his good offices with Mr. Blair. The senator said, "Let me put 
down $500 before I ask him for $50,000, which I hope he may 
give, having so large an interest in Iowa". Mr. Allison met a 
hearty greeting by his old friend, who remarked, "I have had no 
breakfast, and let us go to dinner and then talk up tornadoes with 
Grinnell". Senator Allison gently interposed, "Let us talk calam- 
ity, Mr. Blair, before dinner, for when you get in sight you will be 
set upon, you know well, by a crowd." 

"I think if I follow Dodge you will call it good sauce for 
dinner." 

"Please don't think of less than $50,000 for that great 
calamity ! " 

"You will beggar me — where's the book? I must have some 
dinner." 

"But," said the senator, "you have twenty times my interest 
in Iowa." 

"Well, $10,000." 

"Don't say less than $25,000, and enjoy a dinner after one 
good Sunday deed, as you haven't been to church." 

The book is taken and $15,000 was put down, then a hurried 
retreat to the dinner table. I thought the old gentleman gave a 



366 REMINISCENCES OF FOETY YEARS. 

sigh of relief on escape from appeals, yet he cheerfully proposed to 
keep us in mind and interest friends in the college. This generous 
gift without condition was supplemented by a donation of slate for 
the covering of two of the colleges ; then, at my request, he sat for 
a bust in plaster, to be presented to the college, and also gave an 
oil portrait, life-like, which smiles a welcome on entering Goodnow 
Library Hall. Later we met by appointment in New York, mak- 
ing a call on Mr. Jay Gould, Mrs. Gould's father having been his 
early friend, and he recalling her as a child. Mr. Blair said 
blandly, " Here is a plea which has interested me in calling with 
Mr. Grinnell. Meantime, will you say to Mrs. Gould, 'It Avould 
please an old man to see the daughter of my old friend, for I knew 
Mrs. Gould before you did, when a child ' ? " " Certainly, Mr. 
Blair," and Mrs. Gould came in, and there was mutual entertain- 
ment in reminiscences of early days. Pleasantly Mr. Gould had 
replied, " I shall be happy to aid the college in proportion to your 
Iowa interests and liberal gift, Mr. Blair". He made it a thou- 
sand, thanking us for the call with the manner of a true gentle- 
man. It was a very quiet scene — no satins, diamonds, show or 
formality, more than in the library and parlor of the plainest 
people. 

"Vanderbilt we must see to-night," said Mr. Blair. We called, 
to learn that the indoors were closed and Mr. Vanderbilt had 
retired. Thereupon a note was left with a request for an audi- 
ence in the morning. This meeting was frustrated by a telegram 
received, calling for Mr. Blair's early departure from the city, and 
1 made the venture alone. My reception by the messenger was a 
cool one, for Mr. Vanderbilt had been trying to get ready to leave 
town. " My orders are to admit no one less than the Almighty." 
"Well," said I, "that bars me, but can you take my name and 
cause ? " " No, I wish I could." Not to be baffled, I called upon 
an old friend, Mr. J. P. Chambers, an officer of high rank in the 
Central Eoad, who cheerfully proposed to get my subscription 
book under Mr. Vanderbilt's eye, and sent it to the house by the 
hands of a messenger. After two days I called to learn the issue, 
and the word came back, " No one has seen the book, but his clerk 
was to make a good search ". Then another call and no discovery, 
and the loss being a serious one it made by rumor ijo small storm 
in the house. At last Mrs. Vanderbilt came out with it, being the 
custodian of requests, which I judge were placed where most con- 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 367 

venient to be forgotten. On the door-keeper bringing out the 
found book-treasure, sent by Mr. Chambers, I was curious to see 
the result in dollars of this exciting episode. 2^^il. 

Mr. Chauncey M. Depew's name, the counselor of Mr. Vander- 
bilt, struck my eye, and I resolved to seek cheer by a call on my 
genial friend. If failing to get money, the loss of my book was at 
least suggestive, and I asked Mr. Depew " if the case of the circuit 
rider out West was not much like mine." "Tell it, and I'll see." 
"The preacher informed his Sunday congregation that it was nec- 
essary that the steward should pass the hat for a collection — chil- 
dren out of shoes, and no oats for his horse. It was observed that 
in the circuit of the hat there was not a cent dropped in. Where- 
upon, the minister played his part well, in reproof and in mitiga- 
tion partially, for his disappointment. The hat was turned down 
with gravity and the sarcastic remark, 'Bless the Lord, brethren, I 
got my hat back from the congregation'." Depew laughed and said, 
" That isn't your case ". " Yes, I passed the book, waited three 
days, no draft and no name." Then he said, "That story of yours 
I'll tell to Vanderbilt to-day". I am confident he did tell it, with 
ornamentation, for a telegram came from the office before I reached 
Worcester, asking me to call as I came back. I did call, and a per- 
sonal regret had been left at not seeing me, and there was also a 
draft of $1,000. 

In Boston, Mr. Blair with a spare hour called with me upon 
Mr. Frederic L. Ames (son of Oliver Ames, deceased), just mov- 
ing into a new house on Commonwealth Avenue. The affluence of 
the owner seemed in keeping with artistic decoration, spacious 
halls, alcoves, with orchestra, and all in the most tasteful devices. 
Mr. Blair hinted to his business friend that the music from those 
orchestra seats would not be in time for him, but as the house 
couldn't be taken in in one day, he would call again. Meeting 
Mrs. Ames, with her apologies for the confusion, having had but a 
week to settle, Mr. Blair said, "Excusable, madam — certainly; I 
assume you have not been over the house yet, for I am a fair pedes- 
trian and weary enough to halt". Mr. Ames gave $1,000 freely, 
without solicitation, a gift which I associate with the wit of Mr. 
Blair, and a view of one of the elegant American abodes which 
an Ames can adorn. 

Hon. S. B. Chittenden, of Brooklyn, gave a few hundreds, a 
repetition of like sums. He is a great patron of Yale. Other 



368 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

names I may not give, making an aggregate of over $40,000, 
three fourths of which was "from the world", at least outside 
of our denomination. The smaller, constant givers I avoided, 
and certainly "burnt over" no ground that promised a harvest to 
another in the churches or by personal appeal. Scowls did not 
meet me — smiles greeted me, while I helped the blood circulation 
of men — not the "worms of the dust". That phrase I strike out 
with pleasure and expurgate "total" from the old doctrine of total 
depravity. I only did my duty, and am grateful for a view of a 
more elevated plane of life, and have greater detestation of a 
vicious custom and common habit in ascribing bad motives to 
givers in great acts of charity. Against this low view, hundreds 
and thousands to distant strangers and the poor testify. The 
world has its more quiet givers, some of whose names I am not at 
liberty to mention. They were pictured by Job : " when the ear 
heard, then it blessed me, and when the eye saw me, it gave wit- 
ness to me " ; and for us a deliverance came to the poor that cried, 
and the fatherless who by the desolations of the storm had none to 
help them. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

Historical Address at New Haven, Vt., 1887 — Distinguished Ver- 
monters — loiva Verm.ont and New England Associations — 
Eulogy on Senator Solomon Foote — Shorter Catechism. 

THE OLD HOME WELCOME IN NEW HAVEN, VT. 

It was in compliment to our pioneer family. As a boy I was 
hardly remembered ; as a man, appreciated ever far above my 
deserts for any personality or the public service to which distance 
might lend enchantment. There was for me an inspiration and 
deep emotion for which written words were but a mockery of the 
occasion. The welcome was given in the great church, the posts 
and beams of which were drawn by my ancestor in the year when 
resting the soil as before described. On the front row of seats sat 
a score of veterans who knew my father, and their children of the 
third generation had smiles of welcome and cheers for the guest 
visiting after fifty years' absence. 

From the pamphlet of proceedings, notes of eminent Vermont- 
ers and pioneering incidents are elsewhere given. Such a recep- 
tion brought more than recompense for the trials of youth and a 
stniggle, away from home, to honor our name. It occurred Sept. 
5th, 1887, in accordance with an invitation from citizens of New 
Haven, Vt., saying, '< While you are East and setting up a memorial 
for ancestors in New Haven, your birthplace, permit us to request 
that you will consent to make an address upon the history of your 
town, and give us such information as you may possess with regard 
to those who have gone out of it". Hon. E. A. Doud presided; 
and after my address (afterward printed, by request of the audi- 
ence, and to this volume supplying memoranda used in other 
chapters), speeches were made by a former pupil of mine, now 
Hon. L. D. Eldridge, of Middlebury; my kinsman, Prof. A. P. 
Grinnell, M. D., of the Vermont University ; Rev. W. B. Hogue ; 
Judge William S. Wright; Hon. Luman Pease, of Illinois; and 



370 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

George W. Brown, Esq., of Boston, the only surviving son of the 
veterans of Lexington — his father. Deacon Solomon Brown, a 
merchant, having moved to New Haven, probably soon after the 
Eevolution. He it was who, it was abundantly proved, fired the 
first shot of the Revolution, and the very musket is preserved by a 
grandson in the old New Haven home. 

VERMONTERS. 

It was no uncommon occurrence for the writer of these pages 
to be rallied on his enthusiastic praise of Vermonters. The answer 
would be, why not ? There is no fiction in the distinguished part 
which the state has borne, never too highly colored, and there leaps 
to the tongue the old quotation, " Breathes there a man with soul 
so dead ", etc. A eulogist of the fortunate dwellers in the Switz- 
erland of America has said: "There has been to me a transmis- 
sion of blood in living currents under the laws of heredity. The 
spirit of Vermont ancestry is mine without cultivation. In youth 
I was a listener to the stories of the Revolution and of hated 
Tories fleeing to Canada, and of their children across the line, 
expert smugglers. The state craft of New Hampshire and the 
cupidity of New Yorkers, with a design to absorb and divide the 
state, stirred the blood of my ancestors, and there was fire in the 
spirit of my father, a volunteer with a musket, making a march of 
forty-five miles in a day to take part in the battle of Plattsburg." 
This generation is rich in such an inheritance, and joins in voice 
with a challenge in Whittier's verse, read in the shadow of the 
statue of Ethan Allen : 

" Come York or come Hampshire, come traitors and knaves, 
If you rule o'er our land ye shall rule o'er our graves ; 
Our vow is recorded, our banner unfurled, 
In the name of Vermont, we defy the world! " 

I have often asked, what town of twelve hundred rural inhabit- 
ants, has produced so many eminent persons as New Haven, Vt. ? 
I have found no answer and support my claim with specifications. 

New England has furnished but one citizen knighted by a Brit- 
ish sovereign, and that is the late president of the Atlantic Cable 
Company, who endowed the Mills School, the honored Sir Curtis 
Lampson, of London, a native of New Haven, Vt. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 371 

The distinguished enterprise in building more miles of railway 
than any American, is reserved for a late citizen of New Haven, 
Hon. K. B. Langdon, of Minneapolis. 

That man in Chicago, who has by his steam elevator tolled and 
stored more grain for twenty years than all the consumption of 
Vermont for that period, is Hiram Wheeler, proud of his New 
Haven birth. 

For years, and not long ago, another New Haven boy annually 
sold groceries, not intoxicants, equal to the consumption of the 
entire population of Vermont, Wm. M. Hoyt, of Chicago, whose 
wife honors her Phelps and Langdon blood. 

That corporate wonder of the West, the North- Western Insur- 
ance Company, has a bank president for its treasurer, who survived 
the New Haven flood, and is one of her fortunate sons who daily 
turns his key on over twenty millions of cash and securities, equal 
to the banking capital and saving deposits of the State of Vermont 
— Charles D. Nash, of Milwaukee. 

Another favorite son, philanthropist, savant and gentleman, the 
companion around the world of President Fillmore, the only New 
Haven boy presented to the Pope at Rome, and waiving the saluta- 
tion by a kiss of the toe of his Holiness — was Elam R. Jewett, of 
Buffalo. 

Then there are clergymen, natives of the same town, whose 
memories are yet fragrant : Doctors Miles P. Squire, Milo J. 
Hiokok, the brothers Dr. Ovah P. and Otto S. Hoyt, Smith, Hall, 
and others, to which may be added a long list of teachers of just 
distinction and fame, without a mention of bankers and legislators. 

The residents of Grinnell, born in my native town, pushed 
out like eaglets from the crowded nest, are prominent citizens 
whom I may recall in every profession. Herrick, of the clerical, 
erect at eighty years ; his son, an ex-mayor, merchant, leading the 
choir ; and Brainerd, retired from the pulpit, a brother of a Ver- 
mont U. S. Senator ; Phelps, an ex-mayor, one of his sons a lawyer, 
in the choir, and another a distinguished musician in Chicago ; 
Whitcomb, the eldest deacon, whose family are honored in Chicago, 
Texas and Montana ; Marsh, a relative of the venerable diplomat, 
proud of a son in European-Turkey, educator and minister; Kellogg, 
architect and builder, kin of a late eminent judge ; Blakely, an edu- 
cated shepherd farmer ; Preston, civil engineer, and general in the 
army ; Hatch, ex-mayor and merchant ; with others alike worthy 



372 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

representatives of our old liome, rounding a circle of virtue and 
intelligence, including my family physician, Dr. E. W. Clark ; the 
pastor of the church, Eev. H. M. Tenney ; and Geo. A. Gates, pres- 
ident of Iowa College. Vermont had no seaport, and, if not the 
nurse of sailors, it had a loyal military school at Norwich, where 
so many began their career of distinction in education for the army, 
yet not more brave than thousands who fell dead from their Mor- 
gan steeds, or came home with torn flags and mutilated limbs. 
General Phelps, the emancipator, is not to be forgotten. Generals 
Richardson, Moore, Eansom, Stannard, Smith, Seymour, Hawkins, 
Babcock, with General L. A. Grant, now the popular assistant-sec- 
retary of war — -these are but a few of the distinguished whose 
names are found in the military archives of Vermont. 

In the railway service there are most marked examples of gen- 
ius and enterprise. General G. M. Dodge, railway magnate of 
national military fame, gained his education at Norwich, Vt. 
Charles Paine, of the Lake Shore, Frederick Billings, of the North- 
ern Pacific, Wm. B. Strong, of the Santa Fe, J. C. Gault, of the 
Chicago and St. Paul, Hitchcock and Hammond, of the C, B. & Q., 
C. J. Ives of the Burlington, Johnson, Dunlap and the Wheelers, 
of the North-Western, H. F. Royce, of the Eock Island, with 
Nutt, Baxter, Crittenden and E. B. Langdon, form a group in chal- 
lenge for rivals to the boy-coasters, sleigh-riders and mountain road 
builders of Vermont to-day, who, like them, may drift into railway 
service. 

The press, too, is honored by the sons of Vermont, such as our 
Dunham, and Ex-Postmaster General Hatton, of the Haivkeije ; and 
Eichardson, as well as George Jones, of the N. Y. Times ; Story, of 
the Chicago Times ; Eastman and Saxe, poet editors, and Walter 
Colton, the jDioneer of the California press. 

Publicists and authors were George Bush, T. M. Post, W. F. 
Shedd, 0. A. Bronson and Hooker. In politics, two of the parlia- 
mentary leaders of a century, Stephen A. Douglas and Thaddeus 
Stevens, sprang from our evergreen home, the paradise of school- 
masters. 

Early the missionary spirit foi:nd a welcome in Vermont, to 
be cultivated and heroically illustrated in the persons of Green, 
Fiske, Munger, Levi Parsons and Brigham. I have yet to travel 
or listen on the prairie, or in the crowded cities of the East, or by 
the dashing waves of the Pacific, where honored missionaries from 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 373 

Vermont are not mentioned — in all lands — teaching the Indian in 
his western wigwam, sailing up the Bosphorus to teach the besot- 
ted Turk, and holding up the beacon light of Christianity to the 
millions of Japan. Dr. Hiram Brigham was the missionary his- 
torian; jurist Redfield, the highest authority in railroad law; Dr. 
Horace Greene was long the leading medical authority in the 
Metropolis ; and Rev. Dr. T. IST. Post, the eminent veteran of a St. 
Louis pulpit. 

Before the political lapsus of '84 (Rum, Romanism and Rebell- 
ion), Vermont furnished president, senate president, a senatorial 
master in finance and head of the judiciary, and three foreign dip- 
lomats of a high class. To-day, Phelps at the court of St. James 
is exchanging civilities with Sir Curtis Lampson — the only Amer- 
ican knight, a Vermonter. 

There is one unmentioned. When clouds of sorrow hung over 
us drear as night in the loss of our beloved President Garfield, our 
fears for the nation's future were quieted in the known character 
of a successor, a gentleman educated in the school of patriots, 
ample in the resources of knowledge, a reader of men, with the 
skill of statesmanship, of whom we are proud in his eminence — 
a Vermonter president — Chester A. Arthur. 

Diplomacy has rounded eminent civil service when a Ver- 
monter 's son spoke for our nation in a European capital, while 
Stoughton was minister at St. Petersburg, Kasson at Vienna and 
Marsh at Rome, the latter longer in diplomatic service than any 
American. 

In art, our painters have made respectable attainment in land- 
scape, while in sculpture, Mead and Powers have no American 
superiors, the latter the restorer of glory to marble in the Greek 
Slave. 

Under the inspiration of our poets, you long for the mountain 
air, and a stroll by the trout brook. Saxe mounts his pegasus, and 
all the Saxon race laughs. Hudson recites his conceptions of the 
great poet and we read our Shakespeare anew. 

While at the Iowa State Association of Vermonters, I organ- 
ized a New England Society absorbing the Vermont. In a copy of 
my valedictory I find these words : 

I am one of those tramps, born by the mountains with no expectation or desire 
of being born anywhere else. In this we are kin, protesting that the down-South 
prodigal adventurer, with several outs to one in, who, after filial invitations, came 



374 r.EMIXISCiJXCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

to liimself and on the way wired his father, " Fatted calf for one ", was not a Ver- 
monter. Tliey return home with a trophy, a seal skin caught in exploring for the 
north pole, a robe won in a buffalo hunt on the plains, gold from the gulch, or with 
ail honorable scar or well-earned star from battle-fields, or a medal of honor. If 
clouded by misfortunes, they indulge in the charities and chances of cold victuals 
and cider elsewhere. Every child was born with bright expectations, and the war- 
fare and early trials of the pioneer left an impress with posterity. 

Nature was our mentor, in solitary grandeur, and a symbol of character in a 
backbone of granite the length of the state ; for in the stern tests of principle none 
to the manor born or the true sons abroad called in any Dr. Appalacca as cosmetico 
for a curvature of the spine. 

It is the day of unions and leagues. Let us in our western home, emulous of 
the fame of our mountain comrades, spread the table for brother east of the Hud- 
son, embracing the noblest of yeomanry in the world's history, not forgetting mari- 
tal adoptions and exchanges, unifying a people akin in origin and blended in labor. 

It is related that a shei^herd dog, hunting all night in cold and storm on the 
mountains for the lost sheep, moved the admirer of canine fidelity to the inelegant 
comparison "that all there is of good in man is the dog that is in him ". If we 
have spoken in earnest praise of our old home and the fathers, it is not a just con- 
clusion that most of the good in our national family is the Vermont blood in it, 
when the bald truth is, we have given and gotten, exchanged our jewels and been 
fortunate in matrimonial ventures. 

Hail, old mountain home! A tear for the veterans dead in the valleys, grati- 
tude for memories of her, grand in history, rich in every animal i)roduction save 
the mugwumps. 

Hail, Vermont mothers, the Cornelias whose jewels are the Gracchi sons, 
founding states afar from the old hive. Our marble is white and finer the deeper 
quarried, so shall the deep study of the virtues of our mothers, as well as fathers, 
deepen our love and admiration for them and the home of our childhood. They 
are the true mothers of sons who moistened many a battle-field with their blood; 
and whenever led by generals worthy to lead them and determined for victory, the 
soldiers of New England, whether at Bull Run, in the swamps of the Chick- 
ahominy, with spade or gun, or fighting above the clouds on the mountains of Ten- 
nessee, were true to the flag, true to their ancestral fame, and true to their God: 

"Right in the van, 
On the red rampart's slippery swell, 
"With hearts that beat a charge, they fell 
Foe ward, as fits a man." 



SOLOMON FOOTE. 

The Hon. Solomon Foote, for thirty years a senator from Ver- 
mont, was a friend of my father and taught school in an adjoining 
district. Being chosen by the Vermont representatives, to speak 
at the funeral obsequies in the capitol, April 12th, 1866, I said: 

It is a pleasing reflection that my early years were spent near the mountain 
home of the lamented senator. He gave me assurance of liis friendship, and that 
he cherished the memory of my dearest deceased kindred furnishes me an occasion 
to pay a brief and sorrowful tribute to his character and virtues. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 375 

That biography which follows the eulogistic sketches in the forum will place 
the deceased in the front rank of our American gentlemen and statesmen, the 
measure of whose success should be unseparated from the associations and means 
by which it was attained. The grave senator ever with emotion and pride spoke 
of the rural town of Cornwall, Vermont, where he was born. Its population is not 
a thousand souls, and less at the beginning of this century, yet has the distinguish- 
ing honor, in addition to an intelligent yeomanry, of furnishing thirty-six educated 
clergymen, eighteen lawyers, twenty-three physicians and fourteen professional 
teachers. Its town institutions were the church, the lyceum and the school. In 
the church young Solomon was baptized ; at the lyceum he spoke, to give promise 
of futui-e eminence ; and the school he left to become a teacher and college gradu- 
ate, later tutor, and founder and head of an institution of learning. He honored 
the vocation of the schoolmaster and never wearied in giving this humble profes- 
sion credit for its devotion to a refined civilization and the general welfare. "With 
truly American simplicity he taught our youth self-reliance, and for himself, who 
owed nothing to wealth, the partiality of friends, or the issue of campaigns, he 
regarded it as fortunate that he was called in discipline tp tread the hard, rough 
paths of life. He was proud of his origin ; and that filial affection of a fatherless 
boy for a doting and devoted mother was an augury of future fidelity and devotion 
to the national weal, most fortunately realized in more than a quarter of a century 
of service, and ending in one of the most glorious tributes on record to the worth 
of parental instruction and the reality and value of the Christian religion. 

As husband and father he was doting and beloved; a scholar without ped- 
antry; a gentleman free from the arts of the courtier; brave in action without 
bravado; matchless in volume and sweetness of voice; persuasive in eloquence, 
yet abstemious in speech; genial as a companion, unwavering in friendship; in 
society 

" Pliant as reeds where streams of freedom glide " ; 

a senator and statesman, 

" Firm as the hills to stem oppression's tide." 

Bereaved and gallant people of Vermont, millions are mourning with you 
to-day. It has been your fortune to furnish a noble exemplar for the nation, 
reflecting in character the grandeur of your evergreen mountains and the clear 
waters distilled in the rugged cliffs. 

In the shadow of the shaft of the purest marble which will be reared to com- 
memorate his virtues in the chosen place of his burial, he shall sleep with the 
honors of a hero, for here he met a mightier than earth's mailed soldier, the "king 
of terrors ", and with a smile. With a premonition of an early dissolution, he was 
raised from his pillow to gaze once more upon this Capitol, and then, with mortal 
vision ended, to behold in its brightness the city of the living God, the home of the 
ransomed soul. 

In the address to my fellow-townsmen in Vermont, I summed 
up some of the celebrities of that state in the following 

SHORTER CATECHISM 

of biographic mention, which will have the merit of brevity and 
verity, giving the names of a few eminent in our annals : 

WhO; in recognition of the God of Armies, in laconic speech, 



376 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

demanded in the name of God and the Continental Congress, a 
surrender of the key to the fortress of American Liberty at Ticon- 
deroga ? — Ethan Allen. 

What jurist, in a fugitive slave case, first trampled on the 
traditions and laws of human chattelship, in demanding before a 
surrender of a slave which was held for return, a "bill of sale 
from God Almighty"? The first Vermont judge — Theophilus 
Harrington. 

Who was the general in the late rebellion who first (in Louisi- 
ana), comprehending the value of the slave, without orders enlisted 
colored troops ? — General J. W. Phelps. 

What laAV-maker and leader of the American Congress, by his 
eloquence and courage, gained the title of the "Old Commoner"? 
A native of Peacham, Vt. — Thaddeus Stevens. 

Name the veteran diplomat and first in the rank of linguistic 
scholars and critics, and it is a Vermonter, with more than national 
fame! — George P. Marsh. 

The Christian philanthropist who gave the library of this great 
scholar to the University of Vermont, and one of the chaste edi- 
fices of the world to his college — the peer of princes, also a Ver- 
monter — Frederick Billings. 

The only idol of the democratic party loyal to the flag since 
General Jackson, the "Little Giant", born in Brandon, Vt. — Ste- 
phen A. Douglas. 

Before what Vermont sculptor has the world paid homage in 
recognition of that master-piece of high art, the Greek Slave ? — 
Hiram Powers. 

What other American has chiseled his genius in marble and 
immortalized it in decorative bronze, in our parks and galleries, 
until rising to national fame ? The Brattleboro boy (though born 
in New Hampshire) — Larkin G. Mead. 

Who has thrown upon the canvas the beauty of the valleys 
and grandeur of the mountains of his native land better than our 
"Beech Hill Painter"? 

Where an Anglo-Saxon the equal in puns, smoother in verse, 
more brilliant in wit, than our lamented — John G. Saxe. 

None but the Almighty may "weigh the mountains in scales, 
hills in a balance ", but next, by the world's acclaim, decorated by 
kings, is the exact weighing of earth's jewels and products by the 
late governor — Erastus Fairbanks. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 377 

If Vermont gave to the world Joe Smith and Mormonism, with 
many wives, it was reserved for your senator to crush the monster 
Hydra — George F. Edmunds. 

The highest ranking minister, save him who hokis intercourse 
with the "King of Kings", is a Vermonter, at St. James Court, in 
London — Edward J. Phelps. 

What American divine filled one of the first places west of the 
Mississippi river? The lamented veteran of St. Louis — Dr. T. 
M. Post. 

First of emancipation orators, deceased in New York, was — 
Alvin Stewart. 

Who presides at the Centennial celebration at Philadelphia, in 
memory of the adoption of the National Constitution? A Ver- 
mont diplomat — John A. Kasson. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

The Cherokee Neutral Land Purchase — Emigrant Aid Company — 
Vindication of Secretary James Harlan — James F. Joy — First 
Bridge across the Missouri — A Texas overland Trip — Journey 
to Mexico. 

In 1868, after leaving Congress, I had connection with a great 
land sale. It drew on the chief actor a deluge of epithets by 
the envious, and loaded the press with crude and false surmises. 
This will be my apology for the narration of an agency resulting 
in honor to all parties interested. 

The Cherokee Indians were, as far back as the time of Presi- 
dent Jackson, a disturbing factor in society and politics, especially 
in the state of Georgia, where in "Old Hickory" for a time they 
found a friend. It was in the interest of slavery that the tribe 
was forcibly removed in 1838 by General Scott to the Indian Ter- 
ritory. Beside an exchange of land, they made a purchase of 
800,000 acres in south-east Kansas, now embraced in the counties 
of Crawford and Cherokee. The majority of the tribe in the 
Indian Territory were making progress in agriculture, but gaining 
only a trivial income from their reservation, the neutral lands 
being fast occupied illegally by defiant squatters. The Indians 
feared that the government would fail to protect their rights, when 
they became powerless by the occupation of their reservation. It 
was a fair tract of land with an abundance of coal. Then the rail- 
road extension from Kansas City, south, devised a right of way of 
fifty miles, and a law to facilitate settlement. 

Judge D. N. Cooley was commissioner of Indian affairs, and 
Ex-Senator James Harlan, of Iowa, was secretary of the interior. 
It was Mr. Harlan's judgment that the value of the land at inter- 
est would be worth more to the Indians in the present and pro- 
spectively than the title to the land, in jeopardy and without 
revenue. 

A treaty was made with the nine chiefs called " head men ", 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 379 

persons of business sagacity, whereby the secretary was authorized 
to make treaty stipulations and to sell the land. A sale was 
effected to the American Emigrant Aid and Land Company for the 
sum of $800,000, on which the company was to pay five per cent, 
for the use of the money. Scandals were at once set afloat by pro- 
fessional black-mailers, as to bribes. Squatters on the land held 
meetings to resist any law which would compel the payment of 
money, even on the land illegally occupied. 

Hon. James F. Joy, of Detroit, representing Boston capital, 
was building a bridge at Kansas City in contemplation of a trunk 
line of railway southward through Kansas and the Indian Terri- 
tory, possibly through Texas to the Gulf. This tract of land was 
on the line, but had passed beyond their control; and the late 
purchasers set a high price on the contract under Mr. Harlan. 
Andrew Johnson, no longer the "Moses of the colored man" to 
lead them out, would not tolerate radicals, and Mr. Harlan, secre- 
tary of the interior, resigned. 0. H. Browning, of Illinois, was 
his successor, and, taking legal advice, abrogated the sale made to 
the emigrant company on the ground that time payments did not 
conform to treaty stipulations. Mr. Joy appeared as a purchaser 
for cash, in the interest of Kansas City, Fort Scott and Gulf Rail- 
road, but the title of course was clouded by the previous sale, and 
only the courts after long delays could determine the status of the 
parties. Every hour of delay in adjustment attracted new and 
defiant settlers to the land, in dispute as to ownership. 

A PURCHASE. 

At this stage, and in prospect of litigation, I became interested 
in the purchase ; it not being true that I had part in the negotia- 
tion or Avas even privy to the sale under the treaty. The owners 
held the purchase by tenths. They could not part with a tenth 
without the assent of a majority. Mr. Dewitt C. Wheeler, of New 
York, about to leave for Europe, had one tenth, paying down 
$25,000, and proposed a sale of his interest, and a majority of the 
company had urged me to take his place, which I did. This was 
after a full knowledge of the field notes of the land by a late sur- 
vey and a private personal inspection of the tract. Becoming the 
agent of the company in this transaction, I called on Mr. Joy at 
Detroit to enjoin him from assuming any acts of ownership, but 



380 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

first indicated that, after years of litigation, there would be only 
loss for both the contestants. Well-formed as his head is for stern, 
legal controversy, and being then the great railway magnate of the 
time, he was ready coyly to listen to a compromise which was 
made on condition that his purchase should be officially ratified. 
That could be done only in the most quiet manner, and by a sup- 
plemental treaty noticed hereafter. 

The following attack, enlarging into many scandals, was made 
in a western paper and a reply by Mr. Joy followed: 

HARLAN AND GRINNELL. 

"Mr. Grinnell was a member of Congress. He was also Mr. Harlan's middle 
man in the dealings with the Connecticut Emigrant Company, and their assigns, 
Mr. Joy and his friends, in the Cherokee treaty. After Browning had set the ille- 
gal treaty of Harlan aside and sold the lands to Joy, Grinnell was then the man 
who managed the payment by way of compromising with the Connecticut Com- 
pany, and in getting the subsequent supplemented treaty through the Senate, after 
Mr. Harlan got back there, for which over $50,000 was paid into Grinnell's hands 
at one time, a very considerable portion of which, said to be three tenths, was 
placed at the control of Senator Harlan or his family. Grinnell is still the active 
middle man and lobby agent of the enormous fraud on the i)art of government offi- 
cials. Mr. Joy played only the part of getting as good a bargain as possible from 
them." 

In reply to this, Mr. Joy's letter is here given in justice to Sen- 
ator Harlan and myself: 

Michigan Central Railroad Co., 
President's Office, Detroit, Dec. 30, 1869. 
"My Dear Sir: 

" With reference to the statements made by the correspondent of the Cincinnati 
Gazette relative to Messrs. Harlan and Grinnell touching the negotiations for the 
sale of the neutral lands, and in wliich allusions have been made to myself, I can 
only say that there never was $50,000 paid into Mr. Grinnell's hands in any 
form. That amount was j)aid to the American Emigrant Coxnpany, of which 
$25,000 Avas to reimburse it for the same amount which had been paid to the secre- 
tary of the Interior by it, on its contract, and which the Railroad Company acquir- 
ing the lands had the benefit of as a payment on its own contract. The other 
$25,000 Avas paid as being the difference in value between a contract on time at 
five per cent, interest and a cash contract. "We therefore deemed that we were 
receiving full value for that amount of money which was paid that company. 
There was no other $50,000 paid, nor the half of any such sum, for all expenses 
connected with this matter at Washington, accounting everything. The money 
paid did not go into the hands of Mr. Grinnell, but Avas paid to the treasurer of 
the Emigrant Company. Of course Mr. Harlan did not, and could not receive 
any part of it from him, nor could any of his family. This correspondent is there- 
fore in these particulars wholly mistaken. There was no money used in Washing- 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 381 

ton with any authority of mine to promote the passage of the treaty. At tliat 
time we cared not enough about it to lavish money to acquire these lands. 

"As to Mr. Grinnell's being the active middle man and lobby agent of this 
'enormous fraud', I have to say he is not now, and never has been, the agent in 
any sense of myself or the Railroad Company, whether in the lobby or otherwise. 

" These statements being due both to Mr. Harlan and Mr. Grinnell, you may 
make such use of this as you please. 

"Yours truly, J. F. Joy. 

"Henry Strong, Esq., Burlington, Iowa." 



The above states the conditions of the transfer. There could 
have been no successful negotiation with the chiefs or with the 
Indian department, if the affair had been made public. 

Mr. Harlan was in his old seat in the Senate and held in honor 
for his personal and official integrity. He desired a settlement of 
the question in the interest of owners and purchasers outside the 
courts. Secretary Browning personally was favorable to an early 
settlement, aside from his well-founded doubts as to the legality of 
the second sale. 

It Avas here that I entered upon the most delicate and difficult 
service of my life. I began at the lower stratum, after the man- 
ner of starting a coal fire. My first week's study was with the 
chiefs, to learn of whom to make a confidant for quiet work ; not a 
council with speeches was necessary ; the open course would have 
awakened an army of half-breeds, outside lawyers and agents, end- 
ing in complication and defeat. By strategy I kept '-'Big Indian" 
from the saloons, and isolated and sworn not to divulge the sign- 
ing of a request. All assenting, there was but one party entrusted 
with the secret, viz : the commissioner of Indian affairs. Ex-Gov- 
ernor Morrill, of Maine, was chairman of the Senate Indian com- 
mittee, and, with all his caution, came near giving away the device 
for settlement. 

Fair as the prospect was, and for mutual interests, the long 
speeches in executive session to kill the treaty are known. I did 
not shorten them, and if a Kansas City capitalist did, it was not 
by my money or sanction. 

In the White House there was a long hitch and actual peril. 
The president, I dare say when not sober, had declared the treaty 
should never be signed by him, and there was a rumor that his 
son, his private secretary, demanded so much, saying a certain sum 
would get the " old man's name ". I was powerless with the presi- 
dent, I am happy to say, having no standing at the White House ; 



382 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

and weeks passed with no word as to the treaty. What local cap- 
italists may have done to avert bankruptcy I do not even guess; 
nor will I start a rumor related to official depravity in the demand 
of one person, limited in means in a career of dissipation. The 
president was still unyielding, soured by the impeachment trial 
and suspicious of all. 

Senator Grimes was apprised of the steps to sustain Mr. Har- 
lan, his colleague, and of the interest his personal business friends 
took in the ratification of the treaty, and was slow in crediting 
rumors of venality and the obstinacy of President Johnson. It 
was difficult to impress the senator with the peril, and more diffi- 
cult to assure him that he was the only man who could bring us 
success. A good and just status he has maintained, refusing to 
vote on the treaty because as a railway stockholder his road might 
have an interest in the neutral lands. At last, on advising with 
his personal friend. Senator Fessenden, he made a formal call on 
the president, the first since he had voted against impeachment. 
The gratitude of the unimpeached is assumed, also the diplomacy 
of his caller, who had an incidental errand — it was to inform as to 
the scandal in opposing that treaty, against which there were only 
four senatorial votes. The president said, " I hear there is a pile 
of money back of it, and I am waiting to see Browning, for Culbert 
says there are millions at stake". Grimes' answer was, "Culbert 
was an outside Indian, no doubt, and if your secretary is a party to 
a job the sooner you know it the better. I did not vote for it on 
account of a possible contingent interest, though not holding stock 
in this railroad scheme." The bell calls. Bob, the son and secre- 
tary, is summoned, and an order given to bring the treaty, it was 
not at hand, and there was a suspicion of theft or concealment. 
Senator Grimes left, receiving a pledge that soon he would hear 
from the treaty. What followed as to the cost of finding and 
securing a signature, is related to a scandalous rumor. The fact is, 
no one could have saved the supplemental treaty but Senator 
Grimes ; and to him outsiders said there would have been a deaf 
ear, but for the favor of an anti-impeachment vote. This is his- 
tory, and complimentary to the sagacity and integrity of one who 
was above casting his vote to secure an official favor. Angry set- 
tlers were on the neutral lands. They had, by delays, become a 
formidable party, resorting to law; and belligerent threats came 
forth in resolves. "A railroad engineer would require a coat of 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 383 

mail for protection ; and Joy, Grinnell and Coates, might grace a 
tree by suspension." A more unreasoning border community bent 
on violence, has not been known. 

I happened to be in a small town on my way to Baxter Springs, 
where, while the mail was changing, a band of settlers had met. 
They raised a stage coach curtain to say they were on the look for 
enemies, but guessed the men they wanted were not along. I was 
unarmed, and the second on their list marked for violence. It was 
not safe to return the same road, so bent were they on taking the 
life of one in reality aiding their good fortune. 

On the failure of the treaty, the squatters would have been 
removed before the bayonets of regular troops. The first step 
toward a settlement was taken in appraising the lands, improved 
in good faith for homes, and commissioners had the protection of 
soldiers. These lands were choice selections and only priced at 
about $1.80 an acre, on which time was given for payment. The 
next device toward a peaceful settlement was an offer of a double 
price for the lands where a railroad should be built. Mr. Joy, 
denounced as their great enemy, soon came to be regarded as a 
friend. Welcomes took the place of threats, and the honors paid 
and homage felt were illustrated by a ludicrous incident connected 
with Mr. Joy, whom I am later to set in a biographical picture. 

THE MAYOR BLACKING BOOTS. 

We paused at Paola, Kansas, a young city in the agony of 
expectation, the citizens happy over Mr. Joy's arrival, and I was 
the " next man " who got up the treaty, preparatory to a railroad. 
Going down in the morning first, I returned to inform Mr. Joy 
how much of a lion he was, and that even the city's Mayor was 
radiant with smiles, ready with a coat-brush and to black his 
boots. "Nonsense! I'll submit to no such thing." "But that is 
what the landlord says, and they may have, like some of our 
northern cities, a very common mayor." On going down and wait- 
ing for the obsequious of&cial, a light mulatto man presented him- 
self with a "Fine morning" salutation, ready to give a shine. I 
had taken in the compound truth and joke, and said, "Mr. Joy, we 
are on the border, with new experiences, and among people not 
bred to high notions, but hearty friends and obliging dignitaries ". 
"Yes, I see our man is here, an artist with a brainy head." "Yes 
and it is no illusion of mine that you are now complimenting the 



384 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

city mayor — I dare say as good in giving a polish as in gaining 
votes." Tlie job was done, and Mr. Joy held out a quarter. "No 
sir ! I want no pay. We want a railroad, and you are the man to 
bring it. It is your kind of gentlemen that I like to serve." At 
this point I quietly suggested, "This is more than the freedom of 
the city, granted by eastern mayors to distinguished visitors". 
Mr. Joy, still doubting, asked, "But, are you the mayor, sir?" 
"I think the landlord here will tell you that I had a good major- 
ity. But this was my old trade down in St. Louis, and shoemak- 
ers stick to their lasts. And this is a mighty dirty country, sah, 
so I hold on to de brush. Color don't go far, down in dese parts, 
if the people set out for sport." "Then you were elected?" 
"Certainly; but I ain't doing very much in the mayor business. 
There's not much to do, and I turn it over to a white man, so I can 
wait on you gentlemen." "Is that the reason?" "To tell the 
truth, sah, I was mighty popular. But railroad coming, Mr. Joy 
and other big people, I thought best to Avait and serve big men, 
and our big city by-and-by." " Didn't you take the oath of office 
to serve ? " " Not yet." " Why didn't you, if a legal, fair elec- 
tion ? " " They call this a white man's country about here, and I 
didn't, for I was afraid they would take an appeal on me." 

The laugh on "taking an appeal" was boisterous. Mr. Joy was 
convulsed, saying the humorous jest of the man in his fear of an 
appeal Avas up to the best stories of the jurists at the bar. In the 
carriage on a long tour, " taking an appeal on him " Avas the signal 
for a round of stories enlivened Avith the appeal episode. 

The Jay HaAvker tale, told by Gen. Blunt, may here be in place. 
This neutral land had, like the Indian Territory, been SAvept of 
food, stock and homes, first by one party, and then the other, led by 
Kansas adventurers, and every grade of Jay HaAA^kers. Their char- 
acter and occupation Avas set out by Gen. J. G. Blunt, a bold fighter 
and an ardent Union patriot. The Indians and border whites were 
divided in politics, and their- homes Avere alternately burnt by the 
foraging Avar parties. If there Avas honor among thieves, it Avas 
drawn at the line of loyalty giving absolute protection to your 
own clan, and impoverishing secret enemies. Where one party 
had left stock, goods and food, it was a sign of disloyalty, and a 
signal for consumption or destruction by the other. He Avas a 
hero that despoiled most, and that raid only a success Avhich left 
nothing behind for an enemy. 



EEMINISCENCES OF FOBTY YEARS. 385 

This was General Blunt's story. The last chicken was plucked, 
pig roasted, and pony mounted for an adieu, when a store with col- 
ored blinds was opened, it being that of a small grocer with a stock 
of drugs. The tobacco and sweets were soon pocketed and coffee 
distributed, but what of the glass jars and jugs ? Here was a test 
of the passion of destruction and appropriation. Jars and bottles 
were musical in breaking ; but what of the contents ? It could 
not be left to an enemy, and there was a scramble and ludicrous 
swallowing of a materia medica outfit. Salts, jalap, quinine, and 
everything with a whiskey component was devoured with especial 
avidity. " Heavens ! " said he, " what have you done in your 
raids ? Not content with the last fowl, you have swallowed a drug 
store!" I think he burlesqued the affair by an order that the pre- 
scriptions hereafter should be made by the surgeon, and it would 
be against the army regulations to swallow another drug store even 
to prevent its failing into the hands of an enemy. 

What was this land scheme treaty to the parties ? Every way 
beneficial. The trespassers came to have a legal claim to home 
and realty. From a threatening and blood-thirsty company they 
rose to the standard of peaceful citizens, and friends of order and 
capital. Their titles were perfected under the sanction of a treaty, 
and company warranty. A railroad, first class in all appoint- 
ments, brought life where before was stagnation, although in prox- 
imity to an extensive coal domain. It was possessed of timber for 
ties and bridges witjiout purchase, and had control of coal mines 
hitherto undeveloped for want of capital, and means of freighting. 
Lands were graded according to quality and proximity to a depot. 
Freighting of cattle from the Indian Territory and Texas became a 
source of revenue, and stimulated a profitable cattle industry. By 
a mistake in making the south terminal at Baxter Springs rather 
than in the Neosho valley, the franchise across the Indian Terri- 
tory, by a technical ruling of Secretary Cox, was lost. A more 
profitable device was found in extending the road to Springfield^ 
Missouri, and later on to Memphis, a distance of six hundred miles 
from Kansas City. 

HON. JAMES HARLAN. 

This man deserves here more than a simple defense. He has 
been an honored, able servant of Iowa and the nation. A gentle- 
man of education, he was elected territorial superintendent of pub- 



386 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

lie instruction. Then he was president of the Methodist College 
at Mt. Pleasant, until called to the United States Senate, to which 
he was four times elected, filling vacancies and full terms. 

Education and probity well equipped him for the secretaryship 
of the Interior, to Avhich he was appointed on Mr. Lincoln's second 
term. His daughter has since married the surviving son of the 
president, Kobert T. Lincoln, secretary of war under President 
Hayes, now our British minister. There was nothing held in com- 
mon by President Johnson and Mr. Harlan, who resigned as cabi- 
net minister at an early day. Mr. Harlan served several years as 
judge on the court of claims, and everywhere has maintained a 
high character. Eeference is often made to a check of several 
thousand dollars found by a voucher, for money used in a political 
Iowa campaign. It came by an agent of the Union Pacific Eail- 
road, but there was no evidence that Mr. Harlan disbursed it, or 
that it was used for any but legitimate odjects incident to the 
efforts of partial friends in an exciting campaign like that for sen- 
ator in Iowa. The cry of great wealth gained while in public life 
is also a baseless aspersion. Mr. Harlan, after thirty years of ser- 
vice, had only property to bring a moderate income, and has never 
been charged with extravagance or speculation. Mrs. Harlan and 
two children died some time since, leaving the honored statesman 
to the company of Mrs. Lincoln, his daughter, between whom in 
Chicago and his Iowa home he passed the days of quiet and hon- 
ored age with wide and warm friendships. « 

JAMES F. JOY. LL. D. 

The City of Detroit has a citizen eminent in affairs, and alike 
noted for versatility and the youthful, firm bearing of one over 
eighty years of age. In his Western career of half a century the 
public recalls no single conspicuous failure, not even in the nomi- 
nation of Blaine for the presidency at Chicago in 1884. The first 
of the "Plumed Knights" were sagacious as to a spokesman — one 
who has the fame of a financier and the poise of a sedate gentle 
man. It is no just reflection on the orator that (in mental lapsus) 
there was a mirthful pause, when on reaching the climax of praise 
he had to seek in sotto voce a prompter for the name of his hero, 
James G. Blaine. 

It is near fifty years since Boston capitalists sought to pur- 
chase of the state of Michigan its pioneer Central Railroad. The 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 387 

capitalists sought the famed lawyer of Harvard, asking his efficient 
assistance in a draft of the contract. On this, there was a rare case 
of self-abnegation in commending Mr. Joy, a graduate, and equal to 
any legal occasion. Besides, he was on the ground and well versed 
in Michigan statutes. That legal service was soon rendered by 
Mr. Joy, and was in the line of that eminence which brought the 
rare autocratic prerogatives of a railway magnate, of whom it was 
to be true that neither chance nor charity had anything to do 
in future promotions. The Michigan Central was soon engaged, 
and the C, B. & Q., with lines into Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas 
and Nebraska, numbering from fifteen to twenty ; their inception 
mainly traced to the broad brain without a peer in repiite and 
authority a few years since, not only in the use of capital but in 
delicate combinations based on the natural growth and the most 
sanguine predictions of the West. 

The first bridge across the Missouri river was by him located 
and built at Kansas City — a commercial strategic key. I read a 
poem by Prof. H. W. Parker, of Iowa College, at the dedication. 
The following extract from the poem may be appended, premising 
that the builder's name was Chanute : 

" O Missouri wild, the mountains' child, 

Unfettered since man began ! 
You have learned to stray in a devious way. 

And have laughed at the power of man. 
But a wooer hold, of a mighty mould, 

Your roving will shall bind ; 
With his girder arms he clasps your charms, 

And tames your wayward mind. 
Then sing of the Bridge, the first to invade 
The heart of the mountain maid. 

Old King Canute, he thought he was cute 

When he sat on Britain's strand, 
And looked for the tide to humble its pride 

Through fear of his royal command ; 
But a wiser than he to-day we see — 

Chanute, our builder brave. 
Whose master brain, with Xerxes' chain, 

Has bound the careering wave. 
Then sing of the Bridge, the first to girth 
The proudest river of earth. 

Let the King of yore, on oblivion's shore, 

Recline in his golden chair ; 
The future shall sing the railroad King 

Who dwells by the Lake St. Clair. 



388 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

With harvests glad the wilds shall be clad, 

And a scene of Joy shall reach 
From the land of the pine to the seething brine 

That breaks on the Texas beach. 
Then sing the Bridge, the first to unbar 
Our way to the bright Lone Star. 

Great river, flow, from the peaks of snow 

A thousand iniles away ! 
A mightier stream we see in the dream 

That floats before us to-day — 
A river of souls and wealth that rolls 

Across the flooding tide ; 
Lo ! onward it steams along the beams 

That span these waters wide ! 
Then sing the Bridge, the first to stride 
The glorious Missouri's tide." 

A road southward toward the Great Gulf, to appropriate, under 
treaty, the Cherokee neutral lands for the benefit of all parties 
and for developing its coal fields, rich and wide, was a most happy 
scheme. To this was connected by sagacious investors other Kan- 
sas and Nebraska extensions in sober pace with population. Later 
reverses are not the sequence of his conservative management, and 
it is the sentiment of financiers that the compensation given a 
national president would have been a cheap return for his wise 
counsel. 

Mr. Joy was a classical scholar of Dartmouth, tutor of some 
most eminent Americans, an advocate in the high courts, a finan- 
cier, long trusted custodian of money, and prince of adventure in 
the West. When securing on the prairie a right of way, or when 
a visitor incog, on the border, a pocket edition of some favorite 
Greek or Eoman classic would be found in his hand. Divert him 
from reading ? No ! So ardent were his friends, who knew of his 
learning and probity, that Mr, Lincoln endorsed a long and able 
Bar petition for him as justice of the Supreme Court. This fine 
compliment to the fame of the jurist found an approval at the cab- 
inet meeting. It was then that Mr. Lincoln spoke. "I assume it 
is all right; but somewhere I have filed away a letter from this 
gentleman which I had forgotten." Mr. Joy, as executive of the 
C, B. & Q. Railway had, in a local legal contest, asked Mr. Lincoln 
to appear for his company. On a rendering of a court decision, 
Abraham Lincoln sent his bill, which was so large that Mr. Joy 
asked to have it cut down. The answer came, " Mr. Joy, no reduc- 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 389 

tion ! " to which there was a reply, " It is out of reason for a coun- 
try lawyer to make such a charge ; it is next to extortion, but I 
will pay it and this will end our business." 

As a bird of the air gives the news, Mr. Lincoln only said, 
"Our would-be justice in his economic mood was rather severe on 
the country lawyer ". The remark was followed by silence ; no 
one made a motion. The court lost a brave, learned justice, but in 
the language of Mr. Joy, "I escaped routine, and an elevation 
which would have caused restiveness, pecuniary loss, also loss of 
physical vigor, now only maintained by the activities of a business 
life". 

Thus, in service as trustee, manager, magnate, disburser of a 
hundred million of dollars, with autocratic prerogatives, he has 
escaped even well-grounded suspicion of dereliction in duty, or dis- 
loyalty to noble purposes, in the fiscal concerns of our great era of 
railway construction, conservation and combinations. With admi- 
ration for the youthful professor, ripening in cultured tastes, abste- 
mious in habits, now graceful with age and the optimism of youth, 
I feel sure that the great scheme of a tunnel under the Detroit 
River, of which he has long been the champion, is certain, by his 
advocacy, of ultimate success. And when the Canadas shall come 
to us, falling gently like ripened fruit, I name James F. Joy as the 
minister plenipotentiary, to arrange the conditions of the nuptials 
and union, not doubting that his agency would be exercised with 
tact, probity and honor. 

A TEXAS OVERLAND TRIP. 

My service in the neutral land treaty came to be germane to a 
larger scheme iu railway extension, through the Indian Territory, 
to Galveston, or to Bolivar's Point, deemed a better harbor on the 
east. 

I set out on this trip incognito, April, 1869, with letters from 
the war department asking military escort if necessary. Inci- 
dentally I visited points where there was illicit distilling; yet 
openly I was a traveler, with an eye to railroad building in which 
William E. Dodge, of New York, was interested; and there were 
suspicions as to persons in his employ — names and particulars 
not public. 

My company was chosen for a thousand miles of exploration, 
where Indians, ex-convicts, counterfeiters, and every degree of 



390 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

Texas outlawry, brought such dangers that General Sheridan 
sought to dissuade me, saying he would rather take his chances 
in any battle in which he was ever engaged, than trust his life on 
such a trip. I was to go ; and did, unarmed. My company of five 
was reduced to one, on hearing of assassins and murders. It was 
Major John Delahoyde, who had seen years of service in our war, 
and bore wounds as the marks of service, who was my sole com- 
panion, though he, too, deemed army campaigns not so perilous as 
this journey. 

In the course of this journey, we found the doors were without 
locks, and dogs, numerous as they were and energetic with fleas, 
seemed too stupid for alarm ; and we slept only by turns in watch- 
ing, for there was a suspicion that spies, neutral land avengers, 
were on our track for robbery or revenge. There was more than a 
suspicion. The mail stage refused to take more than one of us ; 
the other, to divide the load, was to go by another conveyance. I 
took the first hack, the other to follow. After some delay it did 
not start, and the major engaged a buggy and driver at almost the 
value of the horse, and followed. I was in the company of one of 
the most desperate of the border ruffians, and on a by-road I was 
to be an easy victim. A stop on a false pretence was made, and I 
was about to conceal myself in the thicket when my companion 
came in sight, with a horse able by rapid driving to go faster. I 
left my company fortunately, waiving hack fare and compliments. 
There was a plot, and the hotel people, back thirty miles, expected 
only to hear of murder ; and an officer was even indulging a hope 
of fees on the return of the driver and his accomplice. It was 
then I recalled Sheridan's caution, and only realized the good for- 
tune in my escape when at Red Eiver the military commandant 
gave an opinion that it was a close call, on a route where so many 
adventurers ended their lives or were never heard from. 

At Fort Gibson I spent Sunday. It is a delightful location on 
the Arkansas river, and assumed importance as a military post 
during the war, with fine store-rooms now empty, and a neat white 
church with columns facing the public square. My hotel lady 
was a queenly half-blood who took no sides in the "wah", and 
entertained me with stories, little regarding Sunday, which she 
held to be as good as any other day. " A heap of people used to 
go in thar — it is Piscopal now; nobody owns it — mighty fine." 
I asked if there were not enough to fill the church. " Laws, yes, 



BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 391 

but no chaplain, and travelers don't often stay over. The wah 
ruined everything." The street porcines were numerous and act- 
ive, stirred by hunger. Soon a mother swine appeared with a 
large litter of pigs in her train, walking up the steps and passing 
through the door. Venturing the remark that if numbers made a 
congregation there was a good start — "That is nothing", said my 
hostess, ''stragglers and the drinkers make the seats a bed, and 
may drop some crackers which the hogs will eat ". A couple of 
hungry goats soon went up the steps to compose a mixed gather- 
ing, and the swine came out of the other door in a race before 
their pursuers. They were not more than in full possession before 
a lank, belligerent-faced dog entered the church, and the bleat of 
distress and the bark stirred my curiosity to look into the church, 
so attractive to the animals. Billy-goat had taken to the pulpit, 
and his ample horns resisted an assault in the canine push for 
supremacy. Another herd of swine came on in the rear, to 
enliven the scene in a Sunday tableau. It was a ludicrous scene, 
and the sacrilege led me to interpose ; and, before my cane, pigs, 
goats and dogs retired in the order of their entrance with reluctant 
speed, while I both mused and laughed over the animal inci- 
dents — a most impressive lesson on the wastes of war, and the 
decline toward barbarism of one of the most beautiful of all Amer- 
ican regions, in a clime "where every prospect pleases and only 
man is vile ". 

In my travels I recall only one parallel relapse toward barba- 
rism seen in the occupation of a public building. In 1853 I was 
figuring on the value of a tract of land (forty miles west of Hanni- 
bal, Mo.) which by the map was near Marion College, to which our 
family had made a contribution of money ; and this institution was 
supposed to enhance the value of our land. Nearing the spot as 
laid down by the map, I made inquiries, but got no light. At last 
I directed my questions to a polite colored man, who wanted to 
know what a college was. It was a brick edifice I was sure ; and 
he said, " You turn down such a road in the brush and you will see 
a mighty long house ". The college was found after a short ride. 
What a campus ! Tall weeds had sprung up where the plough had 
been, and open windows indicated vacant rooms and anything but 
a seat of learning. We hitched the horses to a tree, and resolved 
to go through a Missouri college. The doves, frightened, came out 
from the upper story of a long brick edifice, in great numbers. 



392 EEMINISCENCES OF FOBTY YEARS. 

Nearing the door, or the place where there had been one, out 
rushed a flock of sheep from the lower story, where they had quar- 
ters in an escape from flies and heat. The waste by slavery I 
had only read of in old Virginia. Here I had seen a new state 
driving out northern enterprise, clinging to barbarism, and a spa- 
cious college building vacated by students, and only of value as the 
home of brutes, enforcing the adage that "no grass grows where 
the devil dances ". 

The journey continued, was not barren of incidents, after cross- 
ing Eed Eiver, the northern boundary of Texas. Reconstruction 
had not perfected society, and the great need was the revival of 
muscular inspiration in the towns. There came from every corner 
the ejaculation, "The d — n nigger must Avork". It would leap to 
my tongue, " Suppose you set him an example or give the courage 
of a partner." A"t Sherman, Texas, the military held a check on a 
populace mad on loss of slavery and belligerent by the use of pois- 
oned whiskey. The country in nature was rich and inviting to 
farmers, but with a drawback in bad roads, the worst I had ever 
seen. I paid just twenty -five dollars for a hack ride twenty-five 
miles, from Sherman to McKinney, and my livery man had the 
worst of the bargain, exhausting three teams and giving the ser- 
vice of a day and a night, dislodging mud from the wheels to make 
locomotion possible. It was my first experience with "hog wal- 
lows ", the dread of southern travelers. They consist of holes 
apparently made by scooping out the earth from a few inches to a 
foot in depth, leaving no sod to hold up a wheel, and clay soft and 
like paste in its adhering qualities — holes and hills to be passed 
through and over. 

My journey was at the wet season, and seemingly crossing the 
swollen and roaring streams lengthwise. At Dallas on the Trinity 
Eiver, the ferry-boat made a trip of miles to reach the high land 
on the shore. The weariness and monotony of the journey by 
hacks and stages southward from Kansas City for twenty-five days, 
was only relieved by my escapes, and by tales of robbery and the 
crossing of " dead lines ", the haunts of assassins and the witness 
of daring defences by drivers, the voluble historians of escape and 
tragedy. 

Contracts to carry mails with celerity and safety were not 
made, I could forego a dinner or breakfast to jump on a pony, to 
get a view of a flock of sheep, and hold a brief chat on wool-grow- 



BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEABS. 393 

ing with the shepherd, which I reported to Hon. Henry S. Kandall, 
of Eochester, the most able writer on sheep husbandry of our time. 
His compliments are not material, but my predictions as to wool- 
growing in that country and the need of care with flocks, have 
been more than verified in poor results, due to lack of care and the 
delusion that wool is a "raw material", which will not soon find 
an echo in an official message after 1888. Nearing the terminus 
of the railroad, then at Byron, one hundred miles north from Gal- 
veston, there were hours of ecstatic expectation. The boom of the 
age in locomotion can only be appreciated after snail-like move- 
ments for weeks, and attendant fears, aches, delays and night 
inhaling of miasma, contrasted with safety and celerity, inspiring 
the sentiment of Saxe — " Bless me, this is pleasant riding on a 
rail." 

The scream of the locomotive heard in the distance was a 
friend's welcome, and the headlight hurrying in a race after it was 
like the shining of a good deed in a naughty world. It was a 
truthful engineer who said, I kissed the steam box, but I was not 
a crazy man. Not an earthly object, so said the reporter at din- 
ner, save woman, seemed so comely and lovely in promise of min- 
istries to a weary, forlorn traveler. Houston, a city of twenty 
thousand people^ had, by a mayor and council, tendered me a din- 
ner, on the rumor that I was a protege of railway capitalists ; not 
the first time that fictitious heralding has brought notoriety. The 
only incident related to this affair, was my excuse for leaving 
before the last glasses were drained. I apprised the mayor that 
the citizens of Grinnell were supporting a lady teacher in their 
schools, and I was to visit her. ''I regret the occasion, but I do 
not know the lady." It was only by a call on several colored driv- 
ers that the location of the school-house was learned, and I was 
driven to it. Approaching the church turned into a school-house, 
I saw a row of colored men leaning against the building. I should 
not have known pupils from sentinels — many in faded American 
blue coats — but for a book in hand. They were voluble, and 
rivals in the service of introducing the white man to " missus ". 
An accomplished lady made me very welcome, having been advised 
of my visit. What a school-room and how ludicrous the position 
of the occupants ! A juvenile row of spellers were toeing the 
crack, everyone barefoot. On benches the pupils were at full 
length. The elevated pulpit platform was covered with sleepers, 



394 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 

black, yellow and dubious slia,des, like mosaic in color. An apol- 
ogy was soon made for the position of the pupils in slumber — 
that after a walk of from two to six miles to the school, there was 
weariness which forbade study without rest. The success of these 
schools is a high tribute to the teachers from the North, socially 
ostracized by white people. Returning to the hotel, I recounted 
the incidents of my visit to the mayor, who was surprised that we 
were educating colored people, in charge of a lady of whom he had 
never heard. " I will call upon her," he said, and did, to appre- 
ciate her service and lift the cloud of social neglect. By hearty, 
yet not quite official recognition, he brightened the days of a 
stranger engaged in the good offices of a teacher, in the line of 
service under the Freedman's Bureau. 

Galveston was the city on the Gulf, putting on the airs of a 
mistress without a rival in the state. It escaped from the burdens 
of civil war, and the discouragements which clouded so many in 
commercial pursuits who were waiting on northern capital and 
enterprise, which, however, up to this date has neither been appre- 
ciated nor always rewarded by fair returns from liberal invest- 
ments. The last days of April were most oppressive with heat, 
and a breeze at night from the Gulf the most refreshing cordial I 
recall on many journeys. The wind was welcome, though furious, 
and the novelty of the morning view was a vessel, full rigged, in 
one of the main streets, driven there by one of those storms com- 
mon on the Gulf. Bolivar Point, by reason of bad title or official 
silence, was not the great natural sea-port, not even a rival to Gal- 
veston, with deep water and natural harbor. My errand of obser- 
vation, relating to a bonus held out by a railroad corporation, was 
restricted, yet I left for New Orleans after a gathering of facts of 
use to other parties and with a large accumulation of valued 
experiences. 



It has been my fortune to travel in all parts of the western 
United States and Territories, and to Mexico. To the land of the 
Montezumas I went in part for health, but chiefly as one invited to 
go on a tour of observation. Some notices of the social, indus- 
trial and agricultural condition there in 1887, Avith an estimate of 
President Diaz, and a visit to Protestant missions, may have more 
than a personal interest. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 395 

The country has an area twenty times the size of Kew Eng- 
land, and the grand mountain, burning Popocatepetl, rising three 
miles with his white crown, fills an American with wonder. My 
nearest view was from the ancient Chapultepec, three miles from 
the city Plaza. It is a fortress in nature, girded by art and beau- 
tified by all the skill of arboriculture, decked with memorials of 
the ill-fated Maximilian, on whose couch I leaned, y/ith a tear for 
Carlotta, the ambitious bride, giving room to the young wife of 
President Diaz. Blessings on his reign ! He made me welcome 
where he dines in state, and I bore away a bouquet from the spray 
of the fountains where Montezuma wept three hundred years ago. 

The city is mainly of adobe buildings, giving little indication of 
such luxurious life as I found at General Frisbie's, and other east- 
ern-born and western-reared gentlemen, whose fountains, flowers 
and paintings are a reflection of artistic tastes and generous hospi- 
tality. The city is in a basin 7,000 feet above the sea, but is to 
be drained, under Colonel Harris, an American engineer, at an 
expense of millions of dollars. One can linger long in the cathe- 
dral, the largest on the continent, and nearly a hundred years in 
rearing. In the museum and art galleries, all the gods in stone 
have a place for money, as plain as the channel for the flow of 
blood from the "sacrificial stone", which, by tradition, had an 
office for hundreds of years, and on which millions laid their heads 
for sacrifice. Mexican painters have not held a high rank, but 
there are traces of genius on the walls, and no doubt "t is an 
honest portraiture of the generals and presidents, some of whom 
I have seen in Washington. Juarez has a strictly Indian face, and 
answers to our martyred Lincoln as president and friend of good 
order and progress ; honest, and for the last thirty years no friend 
of a state religion. 

Oh, the cloud that hung over Mexico for three hundred years ! 
What slavish toil, blood and death were in religious despotism, for 
which so many millions now nurse their hate. The priestly livings 
are gone, but a thousand cathedrals are occupied by the Catho- 
lics at the will of the President. Indeed, in rides of two thou- 
sand miles, I estimate the cost of the churches more than that of 
the homes of the people. Yet there are lessons we can learn from 
the inhabitants. They post your letters at once in the sight of all. 
The car and hack service is swifter, prompter and costs less than 
in the United States. The policeman is never, save by an alarm, 



396 EEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

more than fifty feet from his bright lantern in the center of each 
street corner. Of drunkenness and violence in the streets I saw 
none. In fact, in the interest of labor and sobriety, they close up 
the beer-saloon at six o'clock P. M. Their hand-shaking, bowing, 
embracing, is not mere fashion, but the spontaneity of a race only 
waiting for a free religion and an elevating civilization to take that 
high place of which so many of the land of Oortez gave promise. 
A new era dawned with the introduction of railroads, six years ago, 
and no passenger has yet lost his life in traveling over them, 

I should have larger hope for the Kepublic could there be a 
colonization upon the rich, well watered lands. Hundreds of thou- 
sands of acres can now be purchased cheaply. Then our better 
methods of labor, rearing stock and making cloth, would be a 
study and inspiration ; brute miiscle would be in service in place 
of slavery, and the way would open for an introduction of the 
Protestant faith. 

The best of American horses are driven or ridden in these 
streets. Cattle are seen in great droves on the plains, Avhere new, 
fresh blood will be infused from the north ; and Mexican sheep, 
white and fat, will be crossed for wool, where good pastures aboimd 
and mutton is the pojDular food. Swine are almost unknown, yet I 
have seen a fair specimen held by a string in the hands of a Peon, 
while grazing. I saw fifty-seven yoke of oxen in one field, at 
pronged wood ploughs, drawing by the horns, yet steel ploughs are 
coming. Coal and iron ore from Durango are to meet, that money 
may be made in mining, food better cooked, and a new civilization 
known. Man has yet to do his part among a people, active, 
artistic, brave and devout, where God has sent balmy air, grand 
scenery, a soil rich in producing good crops of corn for hundreds 
of years, and the finest grass, not one blade in a thousand used for 
food. 

Mexico, as I have seen it for 1225 miles, is mainly dry and 
sterile, yet never out of the shadow of mountains and of the grand- 
est scenery of the world. The valleys are rich and have two crops 
a year. Beans and corn are the staple food, the latter soaked 
and rolled by women into paste, which is eaten by Peons — four- 
fifths of the people ; coffee being their drink, or pulque, like milk 
and water in color, and having, say, four per cent, of alcohol. The 
laborers live on less than seven cents a day, including their cheap 
soup, sugar and coffee. 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 397 

The mining towns, of which there are more than 100 in IMex- 
ico, are full of life — street railways, elegant riders showing off the 
finest of American horses under the saddle, and gaj families in the 
glitter of jewels and rustle of silks, in great glee, in coaches, this 
city of Mexico furnishing the climax — a full view of show, gay- 
ety and squalor. The laden donkeys are quite as numerous as the 
laborers you pass — all courteous and civil in the profusion of 
hand-shaking. 

The j)0wer of the Church is broken, and since Maximilian was 
shot, the Catholic usurper, religion has been free, and the advances 
for twenty years are a marvel. Dr. Butler, of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, is a representative Christian laborer, with our towns- 
man. Rev. Samuel F. Craver, with his accomplished lady and two 
boys, at Queretaro, a city of 40,000 people, 150 miles north of 
Mexico. He is florid and stout, and you may guess the welcome 
by a noble son of Iowa College, and missionary of manly devotion, 
to the only person from Grinnell greeted at his home and foreign 
residence for twelve years ! The Mexican adobe house of the fam- 
ily — property of the Methodist Episcopal Church, has as much 
room as the elegant residence of his brother, Charles F., besides 
school-rooms and chapel under one roof, with open promenade on 
top and a court with trees and flowers in the rear, all barricaded 
by the custom of the country with bars, heavy locks and huge 
doors — on two or three occasions of service, to repel fierce and 
angry religionists, now quiet, in sullen toleration. This house is 
not unlike an hacienda — farm-house — barricaded, with port holes, 
like castles and cathedrals, all evidences of fierce barbarisms and 
fear of hostile invasions. 

I attended a chapel meeting, where dogs in concert, martial 
bands in the street, and the peal of loud cathedral bells could 
not drown the quiet voices of Protestant singing of Mexican girls 
in '■' Hold the Fort ", etc., nor break the solemnity of a circle in 
prayer. Mr. Craver has some seven preaching stations, and in 
rearing churches and in missionary labor has rode this year 12,000 
miles. As I named rest, and yielding for a time to younger 
recruits, the reply was, "No! A visit would be pleasant, but this 
is the place of duty if separation from home costs us tears of 
regret. It is better to follow the Master and die among these peo- 
ple, long degraded and the victims of bigotry, than to accept ease 
and refined society in Iowa." This is courage and devotion which 



398 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

shamed me, and what amend can we make for our coldness but to 
send, at least, dollars to cheer the hearts of the devoted in this 
rude society where an American cheer and vernacular has almost a 
benediction. 

The city has 40,000 people, street cars, but not any more busi- 
ness than Grinnell with 4,000 people. It takes for the daily pota- 
tion thirty to forty barrels of pulque (their beer) from the cars 
doled out around the floral-decked Plaza and fountain ; but a limp 
mail boy brings the letters for a capital city, and there is only one 
bank near this last city of refuge for the ill-fated Maximilian — 
shot twenty years ago by the liberals after being cut off from food 
and water, having impotently declared the death of any orator, or 
soldier, that opposed his reign. The mockery of his career I found 
in the Mexican museum — a carriage — the gaudiest of earth, a 
huge bust, and the Emperor in oil, full size, on a blooded steed. 

Mexico — beads, bulls, beggars, burros and banquets, have been 
minor studies, all overshadowed by the country as God made 
it, in an air of balm, soil rich, and mountains to kiss the sky. 
The best as the worst of society is here — say one-tenth seeking 
power — civil or ecclesiastical; another tenth pleasure any way, 
and 10,000,000 eager for a bare animal existence, nominally /ree, 
but bound to the soil by the bigotry of priests and the poverty of 
serfdom — yet some very good. But all are rising under the iron 
ruler Diaz, the visitation of railways, American enterprise and 
devoted Christian teachers — only one where hundreds could work, 
perhaps with earlier results in Christian colonies engaged in manu- 
facturing and on the soil. 

I attended a dinner, in honor of Americans by the American 
colony of the City of Mexico — a grand spread, where we sat three 
hours, in honor of Thanksgiving Day, nursing the loves of the two 
republics. President, mayor, minister of war, U. S. Consul Moore, 
bankers of Kansas City, generals of both republics, warmed with 
the flowing cheer and clink of glasses; yet there was decorum 
without excess, only less joviality than at our annual banquets. 
My part was only a minor one at the feast of the gods — a toast 
and tribute to the liberality of Americans, spending one hundred 
millions of money to reach this oldest capital of America, fragrant 
with the aroma of the flowers of the tropics — a profusion which 
recalls the fairy tales of childhood and a mirror of Eden, the gar- 
den of the Lord. 



EEMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 399 

It is asked, what of Diaz, the president ? We shall look to 
him in vain for high, moral restraining force. He is virtually an 
uncrowned king, while the constitution confers a ballot for presi- 
dent. The June election, 1888, revealed that he has no rival; for 
the press has one voice, re-echoed by the army of forty thousand, 
taken up by miners and railway capitalists, favoring even despotic 
powers to avert the wastes and woes of anarchy. He manifested 
a diplomatic turn in taking for his bride the young daughter of a 
Catholic official. A lawyer, he gained repute at the bar; in the 
field, the honors of a leader in battle ; and he drank the dregs of 
want as a fugitive while chieftains thirsted for his blood. Ko 
ruler of our times has been taught in so many schools of adversity, 
and I confess admiration for the political wisdom of an Indian of 
unmixed blood. If plunderers and assassins in the evening are 
shot at break of day, it is to promote order and give that rare secu- 
rity to life and property, especially railway property, in Mexico 
now enjoyed. If the army seems large and costly, it is an econom- 
ical device to prevent the cost and waste of revolution, which 
would be destructive to credit and to a wise system of internal 
improvements now attracting immigration, and soon to bring coal 
and iron ore together, insuring domestic fabrications for the miners, 
and hardware-making, that there may be here more of the comforts 
of home. His rule is not measured by the area of an American 
state, for Mexico is a hundred times as large as Massachusetts. 
A homogeneous people are not his subjects, but those vexed 
by European rule, princely adventurers, American rascals of low 
degree on the border, chieftains of the blood of Cortez, and the 
large majority of natives, only for thirty years released from under 
the yoke of slavery. If he wins the stranger by the suavity of a 
real gentleman, he has a broader claim to the regard of his people 
by the compulsory education of the children of the republic — a 
late enactment by the local government of a city of three hundred 
thousand people, where a supreme presidential voice insures per- 
sonal safety and protection to property equal to that enjoyed by 
us. Of my other journeys, to every Western state and territory — 
once with a memorable company to Yellowstone Park and to see 
the silver spike driven on completion of the Northern Pacific Eail- 
road — I have no time and room to write. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Grinyiell Quarter Centennial Celebration — Silver Wedding — A Ser- 
mon on Sermons — The Home Library — Tribute to a Life's 
Coynjjanion — Money Making — Words to Children and Grand- 
children — Memorial of Faith. 

The first quarter centennial of the founding of our town 
occurred in 1879. It was computed tliat there were 10,000 per- 
sons present — a park full, cheered by bands of music, and the 
scream of locomotives. There were social feasts which our people 
are famous for spreading, making bountiful contributions from the 
larder and farm, and the best and rarest fruits from many lands. 

The late venerable C. F. Clarkson, of Des Moines, gave a grand 
address on the western advances in the last twenty-five years, and 
in special compliment to a model town that has no timber, coal, 
water power, nor a central county-seat location. 

It became my office to draw a picture of the changes since the 
surveyor's lone red flag was planted where it was predicted there 
never could be a city, by reason of wind exposure and other disad- 
vantages. Then we were found by the Indian trails ; now we are 
reached pleasantly riding on the rail. The deer in herds, whose 
haunts I disturbed by the grove, are scattered, and prowling 
wolves no longer howl at night. Walk about the brick blocks, 
colleges and churches to discover the American Spirit, content to 
draw from the earth by husbandry the luxuriant grains and comely 
fa-rm-stock. The wide, unshorn prairie garden has given place to 
homes of taste and business blocks, where tradesmen make facile 
exchanges with mechanic and farmer, replenishing stocks from the 
industrial centres of the nation. 

Jubilation over material progress did not alone invite the long 
joyous shout. There was felicitation for intellectual and moral 
advancement. The roll-call of school pupils whose presence levied 
a tax on parents only, was ended. A payment to education was no 
longer assessed by the affluence of a patron in the number of cliil- 



REMINISCENCES OF FOBTT YEAES. 401 

dreu, but rated by the acres, stocks and money. A state public 
school policy had made education to the poor as free as air and 
sunshine. 

Hear and answer ! I said. Wliat house in our township has 
gone up in flame during the last twenty -five years ? I recall none; 
do you ? No answer. A college building was burned by the neg- 
lect of a student, and a mill by fault of an engineer. Who of all 
our citizens has occupied the county poor-house ? I know of none 
so unfortunate. "None!" was the response. ''None of us rich, 
yet not objects of public charity." 

We have in later years a jail for suspects, tramps and the 
vicious ; but have one of our number looked through the bars ? 
Proud I am that I am oblivious of one exception — one who here 
had birth or domicile. He escaped. " Too smart to be caught," 
was the response. Not one of our people has worn the stripes of a 
criminal in our penitentiary. Far are we from claiming to be a 
people without common passions and temptations. What, then, is 
the great secret of exemption from society ills ? It is the inhibi- 
tion of a saloon, never tolerated in our city. Had it been, I could 
not have challenged you to name the victims of crime. I should 
not have asked you to look at these homes of taste and comfort, a 
community strong in moral affinities, saving hundreds of thousands 
of dollars which dram-shop licenses would have sunken. It is a 
moral and social status which is the pledge of a still brighter halo 
encircling our homes when our semi-centennial shall be observed 
by our children, who, let us hope, will not omit just praise for the 
virtues of their fathers, acknowledging the Divine hand which led 
them here. 

SILVER WEDDING. 

The second notable occasion of home festivity was a Silver 
Wedding celebration, Feb. 5th, 1877. There was a spontaneous 
inpouring of citizens and friends from neighboring towns and sev- 
eral cities, on special trains, making an aggregate of one thousand 
guests welcomed at the Home, of whom seven hundred partook of 
a banquet at the new hotel. On this occasion, Prof. L. F. Parker, 
of Iowa City, on behalf of the guests, presented the very numerous 
silver and other gifts, and made an historical speech ; poems by 
Prof. H. W. Parker, then of Amherst, Mass., and by an Iowa Col- 



402 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

lege graduate, S. Henderson Herrick, Esq., of Grinnell, were read. 
Conspicuous among the gifts was a Wooten's patent extra grade 
desk from citizens of the town and officers and employes of the 
Central railroad, of which gift the recipient in response spoke as "a 
Centennial product and wonder with one hundred compartments, 
that may serve a like office to the fortunate user, in business facil- 
ity and order, to the one hundred gates which gave protection and 
renoAvn to the city celebrated in immortal song ". 

It is gratifying that the fairer of the two recipients of this ova- 
tion received deserved compliments in the speeches made, for her 
well recognized worth. As for the other, without recalling to his 
disadvantage the story of the preacher who boasted that his ser- 
vice cost the people nothing, and was answered that perhaps it 
was worth nothing, the following volunteer toast from Mr. John 
W. Cheshire may be quoted as showing that some gratuitous ser- 
vices are recognized as such : 

"Here is to the citizen that gave a town for education, ground 
for a 'college-green', and a cemetery for the dead; a preacher 
without pay; a university and bank president without salary; 
president of the State Society of Wool Growers, with the honors 
of a competitive sheep-shearer at the festival, and paying the 
awards ; of the State Horticultural Society chief officer, gathering 
by proxy the fruits of the orchard, securing the national medal 
and award for Iowa, and meeting the bills ; a lawyer, waiving fees 
to make settlements and friends of litigants; lecturer and occa- 
sional orator, as a merry pastime ; projector and president of rail- 
roads — only reward given, cheers, resolutions, and an occasional 
walking cane ; spurning combinations to put him in the national 
Senate, or a governor's chair ; a liberal Orthodox in church ; an 
enigma in politics ; a devotee to pure blood in animals ; a pardon- 
able weakness for the fair and a teetotaler in habits. From silver 
goblets on this silver wedding day, here's to your health in the 
cloud-distilled, fashionable beverage of Grinnell." 

A SEKMON" ON SERMONS. 

A sermon is a religious discourse with an inspired text. I 
have many, uncounted, perhaps equal to filling the traditional bar- 
rel. They will not find a mention by will or codicil. There are 
also skeletons preserved, very dry bones of discourses which can 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 403 

never be " clothed upon ", but rather left unused, like a last year's 
bird nest scorned by the robin or the SAvallow ; all the material is 
there for an incubation, but the wise bird prefers a new nest, at 
once sweet, strong and plastic. 

To me all sermons have value if the products of the preacher's 
best thought, and begotten of an inspiration to instruct and per- 
suade to a new and higher life. My ideal was the picturing of 
Christ as an exemplar, and enforcing truth by drawing on the infin- 
ities of two worlds for motives. I was averse to the sermon of a 
century ago, long, turgid, then hortatory by fixed method, joined 
to the seeming inexorable spirit of a criminal court judge, pro- 
nomicing sentence. We have escaped the penance of a cold church 
and the elongation of a catechism recital. A dictatorial pulpit 
where there is no permission of debate or denial is an affront to the 
pews, if not an impertinence. Minute exegesis involves as a rule a 
muddle, raising doubts. Where before there was credit given to 
King James' scholars and the new versions, now incredulity is 
begotten by a clerical critic, who, instead of anchoring, has driven 
out at sea on theological breakers. 

Party politics are without the range of a Sunday sermon before 
an audience of diverse opinions, but such politics do not monopo- 
lize great principles. No denial of political preferences, held by 
the man after a minister, is manly, for he is never less than a 
man ; he has the prerogatives of a citizen. An essay is not a ser- 
mon, nor is an exhortation alone the full measure of expectation 
and demand. Debate with man or his theory, as an antagonist, is 
an eclipse of " the faith once delivered to the saints ". It involves 
pride in victory and that ambitious personality which begets praise. 

The sermon of to-day should reach and attract the uttermost. 
Good people become auditors from a sense of duty, and since the 
great Preacher came not to call the righteous but sinners to repent- 
ance, his successors may be imitators. The modern model sermon 
must be soul speaking to soul, not only through the voice, but also 
the eye — the window of the soul wide open, not possible in read- 
ing. It must be a message without an apology, from the great 
King. It must come with a fervor which arouses all the forces by 
gesture and emphasis, and with directness, "thou art the man", 
calling out the responsive confession, I am the man. Abstractions 
are not enough, nor excusable, when the wise use of current facts 
and providences can be made to intensify religious emotion and 



404 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

awaken lioi^e. The falling sands of the hour-glass are no longer 
the measure of a discourse. It is the quickened pulse of the cen- 
tury, the condensing of decades into years, which is the foe of pro- 
lix reasoning, and the friend of condensation. A mild essence 
once met the demand, now it is the quintessence. Dynamite sup- 
plants powder. Brevity in story, editorial and preface, becomes 
the demands of the day. The ideal sermon of thirty minutes is 
extemporaneous in language ; a pendulum of hope which vibrates 
between a smile and a tear ; love the basis of persuasion ; figures 
of beauty and sublimity inspired by the subject; the solemnity of 
an ambassador from Heaven's high court — the impersonal sermon- 
izer awakening, convicting, by light, power. Divine afflatus. The 
greatest result of a sermon is the response, "I will arise and 
go unto my Father ". A sermon is a plea, not doubt, denial or 
apology. 

Is this caricature — the dialogue of the clergyman and trav- 
eler ? Says the minister in pain and surprise, " I've lost my port- 
maneau". Traveler responds, "I pity your grief". "Oh," says 
the clergyman, "all my sermons are in it". This Avas the trav- 
eler's reply, "I pity the thief". 

I recall how, like a bad boy, I slept or smiled from the old 
church gallery, when a strange minister read from leaves dimmed 
by age, wanting in a fresh suggestion ; yet not a sleeper, or 
exchanging glances with rude girls across the gallery, when the 
minister through his eye had a message — an appeal, a sermon for 
"to-day ". 

Once, in after years, I was caught without a note or a thought 
of a sermon, by a congregation asking supply from me, a stranger. 
I resolved to open the Bible and lean on the Inspirer of all good 
sermons. My eye struck these words — " Truth shall spring out of 
the earth and righteousness look down from Heaven ". I put into 
use earth in its teachings, and the order of the planets with their 
rays of light, glowing and more refulgent in study, the mirror of a 
Maker, whose glory is reflected in his Son, more attractive than 
the sun of the universe to those waiting his beams. If there was 
a want of order, there was a heartfelt rhapsody in appeal which 
did not tire; and not the educated men alone in the audience said, 
" Good, you never want a line written". That was only once. 

When preaching in New York I exchanged with the late Dr. 
Patton, of Hartford, Conn. Only at my late retiring did I discover 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 405 

that with some car traveler I had exchanged satchels — no pulpit 
suit or sermon, and I advised the elder Dr. Patton of my loss and 
that he must preach. <' No, no, I will get you a clean collar, and 
you can take a text like this — . . . ." There was no evad- 
ing, and he said, " Better than any sermon you lost ". The even- 
ing audience was a compliment in numbers and attention. From a 
heart reservoir I drew, and they were not essays, but living ser- 
mons at least. 

THE LIBRARY. 

In my early home, so far from a library, there was a shelf and 
that not loaded. With my first little book there was a nucleus for 
a cherished hope and ambition, a library. It was in my house plan, 
here on the prairie, and in the grove I selected the best trees — 
black walnut. I beheld the logs sawed, and guarded as a treasure 
what came to be a room elegant in finish, and so ample and preten- 
tious that Governor Grimes spoke of enterprise beginning a town 
with the finest library room in the state. Horace Greeley at my 
table, pleading against the demolition of the pioneer cottage, and for 
an addition, said, " You will never want a better room ; far better 
than I ever owned or expect to own ". He, as a guest, drew a dia- 
gram, and saved me from the blunder of building on a spacious 
plan, which I shall not forget. 

For the owner of a library able to boast of elegance, allowing 
only the use of keys and no removal, there is respect, but not the 
emotion awakened for the florist who is profuse in bouquets to vis- 
itors as the best gifts of his heart. My library had no guard. To 
it the people have found a welcome. It has been deranged, out of 
order, and Ave have met losses. There are broken sets — an odd 
volume of Kitto, a fine one of Shakespeare, and others are missing. 
True, they can be replaced, and the cost may be better than tlie 
denial to others of use and inspiration. For the bibliomaniac 
there may be excuse, in guarding his old and rare editions, but 
there is none for the library owner who only wins praise for the 
bindings, and for the cases. My esteem for the gardener with 
the ugly dog at the gate, and my regard for one with volumes 
which he deems to be for show, is on an equality. He who said 
"welcome" to his library, when I had none, was a friend to me 
and my children. I crave for them a library, but I shall deprecate 



406 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

the fear of loss which denies loaning. The great Father has made 
a free library of worlds, to be the grand study of all minds, even 
the humble and the poor. 

MOTHER : A WORD TO MY CHILDREN. 

The portrait to be left out of '' Reminiscences " is certainly not 
your mother's ; and all she has been to us is better known by the 
ministries of thirty-eight years than by any pen-delineation or por- 
trait. Of my early romances I have given no details, but it is fit- 
ting you should know that this is my matured Bible conviction, 
" A prudent wife is from the Lord ". While endeavoring to found 
a Congregational Church in Washington, D. C, I preached in the 
First Church, Springfield, Mass., Dr. Osgood's. Later I sought the 
aid of his senior deacon, in whose home I was entertained. It is 
truer than romance ; it was the woman from the Lord who opened 
the door of a plain, spacious, brick house, in the shadow of a cen- 
tury's growth of elms. The welcome was that of a true lady, you 
can guess. How little had I to do with this meeting ? What had 
she who became your mother ? Nothing. There are records of 
an epistolary correspondence without a hiatus or cloud — an ante- 
nuptial disproof of the adage that "■ the course of true love never 
runs smooth ". It did once. 

You know I think myself to have been one of the most fortu- 
nate of mortals in the family and the simplicity of my bride — 
every year adding a golden link in life's charmed chain. All that 
she has been to you and to me I could not tell you, enjoying the 
af&uent affection of one who has made us all the happiest of mor- 
tals, emitting a fragrance in the household by the ministries so 
long a solace. It is my testimonial that you my daughters have 
received from your mother the best example and benedictions of a 
home life, whatever from him who can use no language flattering 
or even in just compliment to the voyage of thirty-eight years of 
experiences made blissful. Each fifth day of February since 1852, 
recalls plighted love which time ripens, and which it will require 
an eternity of years to unfold. 

MONEY MAKING. 

The writer remembers that he was early disgusted with a sor- 
did passion for money, corroding like a canker^ or, to change the 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 407 

figure, making an immortal to become like a stagnant pool, rather 
than a clear stream from a charmed reservoir of power, waiting for 
a dispersion to gladden all around. Wealth, as an end, is crim- 
inal, but gained as a wayside flower in a noble career, it is to be 
prized for use. A miser has a poor repute in this world and will 
find no eulogist in the next. There is no secret in being rich. 
Industrious saving, hoarding and compounding interest, tells the 
prosaic story of a life closed usually with a tearless funeral. The 
richest persons, save those by inheritance, have as a rule, sacrificed 
cardinal virtues, and cultivated only negative virtues. 

I could have been rich in dollars, adding ciphers on the right 
hand of my figures. By lucky purchases and favored associations 
in business, I might have been the envy of neighbors, and the 
recipient of many thousands annually, requiring for the last will a 
frequent codicil. With injustice to no one I could have taken for 
my Iowa land purchase twenty-five thousand dollars (from which 
the College gained several times that amount) ; that at compound 
interest would have been, assuming that I could otherwise support 
myself, two hundred thousand dollars. Unallured by public rail- 
way enterprise, in the Iowa Central, I could have saved, from a 
loss, with interest, of twenty thousand dollars. In the surrender 
of sheep contracts, on the wool collapse, there would have been 
twenty thousand. Much in gifts I could have withheld, with no 
loss of respectability ; and the amount saved by refusing endorse- 
ment and indulgence to others, would have been a large sum that, 
lost, must be added to a retrospection of verdancy, perchance with 
an unseemly boast of kindness that came by heredity and not by 
cultivation. 

If there are regrets for incapacity to do what dollars would 
accomplish, there is a reflection that I have not worshipped the 
golden calf which many of my cotemporaries have set up far from 
the echoes of Sinai. 

With exceptions, the dolts of this age who strike for money, as 
an arrow goes from the bow to the mark, have large estates. But, 
some inherit thrift. Hence, there is a related question — What 
of the succession? The children of wide-awake God-fearing ances- 
try have every advantage in the line of example and heredity. I 
was reminded in reading the history of Roxbury, now a part of 
Boston, that the rich and stilted names were gained in the royal 
line of a chance sterling few ; also reminded that my ancestor on 



408 REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 

the maternal side, John Eliot, could be mentioned in no words that 
can be held extravagant in commemoration of his virtues. 

If these statements should not be of use as a mollifying oint- 
ment in binding up the wounds of regret, it is yet a true explana- 
tion of the fact that my pioneer work brought only a competence. 
It is certainly a solace that yearly I have released from obligation 
some unfortunate dependants. I would not push out the home- 
less ; I could not unfeelingly make a levy of costs for the poor, nor 
use the courts for gains. The last year I remitted for the family 
of an old friend hundreds of dollars ; to parties on the frontier I 
have relinquished my rights, if not to insure the praise of the 
widow and orphan, yet to keep a good conscience. I dare not say 
there has been no absolute yielding to temptation in the strife for 
gain, but I commend to all who come after me an avoidance of the 
meshes of the law plots which are the occasion of boast. Thus 
am I a believer in the philosophy that only kindness, fair dealing, 
even charity to the poor, is the way to that true wealth not 
attained by the misers, who forget the relations of a Christian 
people in building up an elevated society and cultivating cardinal 
virtues of our religion. 

So, at the going down of my sun, with regrets in the memory of 
so few kindnesses, I can commend a small estate gained in the way 
of Christian citizenship as more to be envied than a great one 
amassed for show, personal pleasure, or by extortion. The good 
which one has kept and that bestowed upon self may be loss, and 
bring reflections to embitter the last hours in reminiscence, while 
gifts in charity and to churches, and little regard for show, furnish 
pleasure rather than an occasion for apology. 

THE GRANDCHILDREN. 

Our natural love for kindred has, of course, no virtue. I have 
regard, even a heart overflowing with affection for the grandchil- 
dren, but did not know its depths until this time of reflection 
in sickness. This moves me to dictate some thoughts retrospect- 
ive, and amounting to convictions. 

I have seen the ups and downs, individuals rising into heroic 
men though born in humble life ; also the stilted on the backs of 
ancestors of renown, or rich in dollars by bequest. I have seen 
pretension and masquerade of superiority, only clothed in the rags 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEARS. 409 

of fallen royalty with few to pity for the issues of indolence. 
These had less concern for the future than the animals that lay in 
store for winter, without the instincts leading the fowls of Heaven 
to seek a winter home. That want is a blessing, I do not say, for 
that is not the heart's choice in the love we bear to those who 
come after us. Still, it is not romance that poverty is the good 
angel hovering over the cradle and casting a shadow on our way, 
to be brightened by toil. Let that blessing be only brief on the 
road to competence and honor. Let us escape the delusion that 
only the poor know what gratitude is, and that they only are the 
honest. The temptation of poverty I do not covet for any, nor a 
surfeit of riches to beget a denial of the great Giver of all ; rather 
the product of saving in ways of self-denial, to avert slavish 
dependence and want incident to poverty. Nature's demands in 
perils and the weakness of decrepit old age are realities. Pride is 
the twin beggar of want. Perhaps less entitled to relief is pride 
than the victims of calamity. It is out of fashion to save; yet 
what but unreason to squander earnings or heritage to become a 
companion of the sluggard, begging in vain in harvest. 

A great delusion of the time is, that most of those who are 
envied came to their estate of honor or wealth by smart trickery. 
A student by deception of his instructor brought high markings; 
duplicity insured voters; and hard bargains great wealth, whereas 
it is a life-lesson that all out of line with probity and justice is 
loss in the final result. A tainted reputation is more than a 
canker to the tongue and rust to money ; from such a character 
society should flee as from a viper or as when in the vicinage of 
contagion. A professional "trader", alas, is the prey of the 
tempter as a rule. A place hunter who mu.st rise on the de^^recia- 
tion of rivals, has achieved only a cheap, brief honor, nothing for 
his children in the royal line of heredity. Sleight-of-hand perform- 
ers are for " one night only " ; tricky buyers, sharp lawyers, mis- 
leading courts, enjoy only ephemeral success, becoming a company 
of despised conspirators, savoring of hypocrisy in deeds which late 
repentance can only extenuate — not fully atone for. 

I have seen the literary plagiarist — how proud until discov- 
ered; the doctor famed by the professed cure of a malady, when 
the specific disease was only a myth ; the lawyer with the plumes 
of a fraud in plea ; and shyster, hard even to impoverishing wid- 
ows and orphans, rich by estate settling, with almost ghoulish glee 



410 BEMINISCENCES OF FORTY TEAES. 

over the fat pickings of the dead. Their repute was a worthless 
veneering. They preferred the false fruit golden to the eye, but 
ashes to the taste — the foretaste of dregs from the cup of woe, 
which I fervently hope none by me known and regarded may 
drink ! 

Then open honest gains — no dagger hidden for the dark cur- 
tain of night, but becoming what we wish to appear on the road to 
success by fair, frank ways. Let there be decoyer for the fish, a 
trap for a bird, but never brutality in use of strength or finesse or 
fraud in dealing with rivals ; only the love born of the Great 
Exemplar, and holding precious the words, "that mercy I would 
show to others, show thou to me ! " 

MEMORIAL OF HIS FAITH. 

Mr. Grinnell left for his children a dictated expression of sick- 
room experience, which will remain to them a precious memorial 
of his faith. In this he speaks of the dread of the disease which 
fastened upon him and the final liberty from fear which he gained 
through the thought of how little he was suffering in comparison 
with the Saviour. This is the memorial in full: 

So, my children, the religious trust of my parents, so far from 
being a delusion, is my joy and trust. For yovi all I wish broader 
acres, a larger bank account and honors ; but the commendation of 
a life of virtue, mingled with gratitude and trust in the great 
Father is worth more than all. The garment of my profession I 
can not make white. Thoughtless words may never be recalled, 
but a confiding trust in my Saviour I express with the pleasure of 
one who has received so much and can leave with cheerful trust 
kindred, the church, my country and all in the hands of that Provi- 
dence who, I believe, will never leave or forsake his own. Then 
in the last words, confidingly, the Bible is our guide, providence a 
study, Christ the exemplar, who will bring inconceivable joy, even 
in hours of pain ; and if at last there should be a delusion there 
will be no regret that I was sent forth on this mission, but pleas- 
ure, with a dying breath to mention my Saviour, the world's cap- 
tain, a physician for the sick soul and His example to be a perpet- 
ual study and imitation. I know tliese may be mere words, but 
they express convictions ; they may want the enforcement of life 
but they are the honest thoughts I would have in association with 



REMINISCENCES OF FORTY YEARS. 411 

an unworthy life ; and the only sermon falling from my lips for 
which I crave a remembrance and heed by those who shall ever 
care to inquire, " What did he do ? What did he become ? And 
to what did he aspire ? " Ah ! that I had a gift of tongue to leave 
a conviction of what I feel. Ah ! that if spared days in the 
encounter with disease I may give a new test of my loyalty to 
Christ ; that it may be a reassurance that houses and lands and all 
earthly goods are of trivial concern contrasted with a fitness to 
meet and worship with the King of glory through all eternity. 



APPENDIX. 



The circumstances of Mr. Grinnell's death, the addresses at his 
funeral, and the subsequent memorial meeting, together with a few 
testimonials by persons not present on these occasions, are here 
appended : 

Hon. J. B. Grinnell died last night at 10.30 o'clock. The sufferer was in 
a chair and leaning forward on a pile of pillows, apparently sleeping restfully. 
His attendant, Mr. Newman, said he wao resting better than he had for some time. 
Mr. Grinnell awoke and said he was free from pain, speaking in a firm voice. He 
could not be induced to lie down and died in his chair. He was conscious to the 
last. Mr. Grinnell had been in failing health for about two years, from bronchitis 
and asthma, with intervals of release from suffering, in which his energy of char- 
acter at times carried him beyond his physical strength and aggravated the 
relapses. Professor Jones, of Normal, 111., and Mrs. Grinnell were at Mr. Grin- 
nell's side when he passed away. Mr. Grinnell was fully conscious of his approach- 
ing end. He passed away without suffering. 

Mr. Grinnell was married Feb. 2, 1852, to Miss Julia A. Chapin, of Spring- 
field, Mass. They had two daughters — Mary Chapin, now the wife of Rev. Dr. 
D. O. Mears, of Worcester, Mass., and Carrie Holmes, now the wife of Professor 
R. D. Jones, of Normal, 111. — Iowa State Register, April 1st. 

FUNERAL SERVICES. 

The citizens united in doing honor to his memory. The restless, tireless spirit 
of the city's founder beats for her no more. His soul has gone to its reward ; his own 
unostentatious spirit of generosity will live on. It was one of bis requests that 
there sliould be no mourning for him — quite in keeping with his public life — and 
the ordinary symbols of mourning will be omitted. No robing in black at his 
death. He has gone where is joy and comfort and peace. 

The funeral was held at the house at 2 p. m., a small number being present, 
and all arrangements under direction of R. M. Kellogg, a long and trusted friend 
of the family. The exercises were brief, consisting only of a prayer. 

Tlien the funeral procession took up its march to the church. It had been 
preceded by Gordon Granger Post G. A. R., a very graceful and appropriate thing 
for the post to do. Then came sons of early settlers, the active pall-bearers, fol- 
lowed by the honorary pall-bearers ; after them the relatives and friends. As the 
procession passed down the church aisle Professor Kimball played on the organ 



414 APPENDIX. 



Beethoven's funeral march. In appropriate places in the church were seated the 
mayor and city council, officers and directors of the various banking institutions, 
the college faculty, trustees and students. All available space in the church was 
occupied by friends, the city seeming to have turned out en masse to do honor to 
the memory of its founder. 

Prayer was first offered by Presiding Elder T. B. Hughes. Rev. J. F. Heilner 
announced the opening hymn, " Shall We Meet Beyond the River ". 

Mr. Tenney then read a few selections from Scripture and proceeded with the 
opening address, giving his personal impressions of Mr. Grinnell's individuality 
and character. Among other things he said : First, he was of an essentially poetic 
temperament. His conception of things was not simply as they are, but as they 
might and ought to be. He caught the ideal in every situation and with the ardor 
of glowing hopefulness set about attaining it. This element characterized his 
writings and public addresses. His thoughts, tinged with poetic glow, rushed out 
into expression sometimes faster than logic could arrange them and sometimes 
they seemed to mingle in inextricable confusion, but almost invariably they 
emerged in some telling climax that justified all that had gone before. There was 
a real Carlylian strength in his style when at his best, and many times his grasp of 
the situation in public speaking, and the aptness of his illustrations and telling 
quality of his liumor, gave him striking oratorical power. This poetical ele- 
ment showed itself in his deeds. Seeing what ought to be done, he many times 
attempted what to cold prudence seemed impossibilities, and his courage and hope- 
fulness carried him through to successful issues where a faltering, distrustful man 
would have made utter failures. 

A second distinguishing characteristic was a large-hearted generosity. He 
tliought not only of his own things but also of the things of others, yea, many 
times he seemed to forget about his own that he might think and care for others. 
This element made him a man of notable public spirit. He lived for his state and 
town, for Iowa College and his Church. Their reputation was as the ajiple of his 
eye; their prosperity his highest earthly ambition, and for their interests no per- 
sonal sacrifices were too great. 

And this same spirit he carried out in his relations to individuals who needed 
his help. There is an unwritten history of personal helpfulness to multitudes in 
his life which would prove him to be in the largest measure a lover of his 
fellow-men. 

In his religious thinking he would be considered progressive rather than con- 
servative. He held unflinchingly to the grand essentials of the Christian faith, 
but he was nobly tolerant in his attitude to every sincere searcher after the truth. 
He was ever ready to welcome the new light which was "to break out from the 
word ". 

In his personal faith and hidden religious life he ripened in these last years of 
experience, and evinced a humility and simple trust which was an inspiration to 
all who came into contact with him. 

He left for his children a dictated expression of his sick-room experience, 
which will remain to them a precious memorial of his faith. 

After Mr. Tenney had closed his address. Rev. Wm. "Wright announced the 
second hymn, " We Shall Meet Bye and Bye." 

Professor L. F. Parker, whom Mr. Grinnell had asked several years ago to 
give the address at his funeral, then gave a biography of the deceased, speaking 
eloquently, tenderly of his hopes and his fears, his struggles, his aspirations and 
his successes as a cultured, refined man and as an enterprising citizen. From the 
address we extract one passage and the conclusion. "Naturally, as the magnet 
draws iron, once here he could not be unseen or unheard. The first waves of pop- 



APPENDIX. 415 

ulation had flooded in from the south and the southern portion of the free states 
west of the Alleglianies. These j)ioneers were all along our rivers, through all our 
groves, brawny men, industrious, hardy and fearless as Daniel Boone, often more 
unfriendly to abolitionists than to slavery itself. Eighteen hundred and fifty-four 
was memorable in Iowa for the large inflow from the more northern and New Eng- 
land states, for the distinct political issue of opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska 
bill, and for the election on that platform of James W. Grimes to the governor- 
ship. It was the state after Mr. Grinnell's own heart. The beauty of its ocean- 
like prairies was fascinating to him, but most fascinating of all was the industry, 
the intelligence and the aspirations of its people. Its possibilities seemed bound- 
less. Into the discussions of 1854 he dashed as Sheridan flew where bullets fell 
thickest. It was his introduction to the state. Thenceforward his name was a 
household word in all our Mesopotamia, his colony an object of widespread inter- 
est. His facile and felicitous speech, quick repartee and measureless energy were 
in demand in all campaigns, and his profound thought Avas called for in official 
life. He was made state senator from 1856 to 18(jO and was efiicient in all the bet- 
ter legislation of the time. The fair historian of all interests will be compelled to 
write his name more than once in the legislative progress of the time, for exanaple, 
1858, the Iowa school legislation. 

Of our friend's life from 1850 to 1870 I can speak with the perfect assurance 
derived from daily conference and confidence. During that time the town 
seemed more than his lengthened shadow. There is but slight figure of speech in 
the statement that it was the man himself. More than one man not in harmony 
with his central purpose was advised to move on ; those who remained were 
quieted both churchward and collegeward by contrast with him. 

Wieland once said of the German poet Goethe: "Since the morning I first 
met him my soul has been as full of Goethe as the dewdrops of sunshine." In 
that elder day Mr. Grinnell's magnetic personality so impressed strangers through 
the state that he who took his hand or heard his speech could not forget him. It 
was natural, then, that we who were in daily contact with him should soon learn to 
second all his thoughts, his plans at home, and to make him on all occasions our 
chief representative abroad. 

Those who have met him only in the late years, when disease was sapping his 
wonderful vital force and making it less possible for him to take an active share in 
all our miiltiplying interests, can scarcely appreciate the universality or the stimu- 
lation of his earlier presence. Those of that time will cheerfully accord to him a 
greater influence toward all that we most value in town life than to any other ; 
.some of us would say more than to all others. It was then obvious indeed that he 
who would carry any public measixre must first secure our friend's co-operation. 
Even if his plan did not seem to some of us quite the best, his personal effort 
would certainly make it the most feasible. 

In church influence and church building he was not limited to externals. In 
addition to his early mass of business affaii-s he was the first and long the only pas- 
tor in the town, and always without compensation. His preaching was always 
fresh, fraternal and hopeful. It was fresh, for it had the tone of the West about 
it, of the newest West that was growing up about us. He talked little of the con- 
dition of the Jews, more of the work of the early Christians, but most of all of the 
things done and to be done there and then. That preaching was eminently broth- 
erly. His religion and his expression of it was largely, very largely philanthropic. 
Truth came to him as it has been said to reach the mind of the late Dr. Goodell, of 
St. Louis, from sympathy rather than by a painful process of learning. He was 
humane because he was so thoroughly human. He found duty in benevolence, in 



416 APPENDIX. 

good willing, in thought and in practice. His words impelled to all generous 
kindness, his acts attracted to it. The bereaved, the sick and the unfortunate 
always expected to hear his quick coming footsteps and were never disappointed 
without imperative reasons. It was no strange thing for groceries, a pair of shoes, 
or even a stove, to be ordered at the salesroom, or sent to those in want from his 
own home. With such preaching in our pulpit and such practice out of it, help 
and self-help was very easy in those days in our little community. 

And do you who have come to us in later years wonder now that our preacher 
was so influential ; that his preaching was helpful ? The preacher seemed to adopt 
Pope's maxim in our community life and to assume that "whatever is is right". 
Complaint on his lips was strange ; praise was easy. In turning to the future, both 
near and remote, it was the radiant side he saw. Henry Ward Beecher once told 
his congregation that whenever he wanted to study the doctrine of original sin he 
studied them. Whenever our first pastor wanted to study the basis of teri-estrial 
hope he studied himself. On that deepest tablet he found the one word "hope" 
written, boldly written. He repeated it to us in ever varying phrase and never 
varying confidence. He believed in us and in our future until we, too, dared to 
believe in both. His hope was contagious, victorious, everything vanished before 
it. It filled the place with happiness and harmony. 

The college has ever been the object of his highest hope and of his most con- 
stant effort. It was in his New York plan, in all arrangements here before Iowa 
college became our own, in his successful effort to try it here, and in all his later 
thought. If the name of the givers and of the agent who received the gifts were 
written on all donations of the college, his name and that of his family would have 
no parallel in library and cottage and college building. Blair Hall stands to-day, 
and long may it stand, the one great monument to his greatest success in obtaining 
a single donation for a college building after the tornado. 

The entire city voices its memory and its gratitude to-day. The city flag at 
half mast, words of the city council, the resolutions of the business men and their 
closed doors, the silence in our school-rooms, this great assembly, and not least of 
all, the request of the "boys in blue " to be permitted to bear this sleeping dust to 
its final rest, tell how very near our friend came to the common weal and heart. 
The soldier never had a better friend than he, the town cannot have a nobler ben- 
efactor than he who launched it, trimmed the sails and so long held its helm. 

Yonder park may yet bear some formal monument, but to him who would see 
him completest we would say, "Behold! the town itself, Grinnell in its material 
form, its educational institutions, its moral life." His face and his deeds are pho- 
tographed on grateful hearts here and elsewhere. His beneficiaries in ordinary 
want and in the tornado disaster bless his memory and some have welcomed him 
on the other shore. If we should utter a word here of sympathy with the kindred 
bereaved, we should say that we who speak and we who are silent feel most like 
taking our seat by your side as largely the partners of your emotions. .Our brother 
gone would not have you wear a badge of mourning for him ; he would not have 
us remember him with tears of pain. Privilege and duty alike demand that we 
should permit his life work to be an inspiration and his hope to be our crown of 
joy. It is a rich legacy of joy, it will remain a ceaseless benefaction to us. His 
sickness was long and at times through agonies worse than death. He closed his 
eyes at last under the clouds and in the night. Morning came to us and it was 
golden sunshine. Light came to him, and it was the radiance of heaven. 

" Beloved dust, farewell. 
Hail, beloved brother! " 

At the close of Professor Parker's address Dr. Magoun alluded briefly to Lis 



APPENDIX. 417 

acquaintance and friendship with Mr. Grinnell. He said it was in 1848 that he 
first met Mr. Grinnell. He was introduced to him at Dubuque while a Fourth of 
July celebration was in i^rogress. He was at that time, as he always was, a demon- 
strative, enthusiastic man. He grasped every situation and made the most of it. 
His young heart was buoyant and full of hope. In the employ of the American 
Tract Society he was the most useful man ever engaged by that great truth distrib- 
uting organization. He could see more people and say more in a day than any 
man he ever knew. He was a herald of light and truth to the early villages of Iowa 
and Wisconsin. It was at that time and while riding over this western country that 
he first conceived the idea of a moral educational town to be founded somewhere 
on the open prairies — a place that should be as a beacon light for all far and near. 
It was some time until he met Mr. Grinnell again, but afterward he saw much 
of him, and it was his good fortune to become intimately associated with him in 
carrying out some of his great life thoughts. He had often thought that in that 
first meeting he had learned to know Mr. Grinnell as well as he had learned to 
know others in years of acquaintanceshii). The frank, easy, oi^en and spontaneous 
nature of the man left nothing hidden after that, to hiiii, memorable meeting. 

After giving these facts, Dr. Magoun paid a beautiful tribute to the noble 
Christian life of his friend and fellow-worker. It was full of eloquence and 
pathos, and left a deep impression upon the audience. 

The closing musical selection was "Gathering Home", soprano solo by Mrs. 
Geo. M. Christian. It was one of the most touching things of the afternoon. The 
beautiful words, rendered so faultlessly by the gifted singer of the city of Grin- 
nell, went home to the hearts of all, and many eyes were dimmed with tears as 
the words " One by one " fell from the singer's lips. 

The exercises closed with prayer by Rev. Mr. Chamberlain, of Iowa College. 
Hundreds, if not thousands, filed past the flower-laden casket, and many lingered, 
showing how hard it was to part with one who through many years had endeared 
himself to all. 

The warm weather followed by the cold spell of the night before had left the 
roads in a practically impassable condition. It was thought best not to drive the 
hearse or any carriages to the cemetery. The members of Gordon Post, G. A. R., 
volunteered their services to carry the bier all the way to the cemetery, a distance 
of nearly a mile. The oifer was accepted, and the old soldiers, for the love they 
bore him while living, with bowed heads carried the burden. Nothing showed 
more tenderly the devotion to the good man, the noble i)ioneer and distinguished 
citizen who now lies buried near the city that will perpetuate his name. — Grin- 
nell Herald. 

MEMORIAL SERVICES. 



The following Sunday afternoon, in the Congregational Church, was given to 
memorial services of a free, spontaneous character in honor of Mr. Grinnell, of 
much more value in testimony to him than any formal exercises. Familiar 
speeches, full of reminiscences and warm tribute, were made by Rev. T. G. Brain- 
erd. Col. S. F. Cooper, H. G. Little, Rev. J. M. Chamberlain, J. P. Lyman, Prof. 
J. Macy, R. M. Kellogg, Mr. Clark (son of an early settler), Ex-President G. F. 
Magoun, D. D., Prof. R. D. Jones, Rev. D. O. Mears, D. D., of Worcester, Rev. H. 
M. Tenney; letters were read from Ex-Governor Larrabee and Mrs. President G. 
A. Gates (in the absence of her husband East), and resolutions of condolence by 
the Gordon Granger Post, G. A. R., the preamble of which says of Mr. Grinnell: 
"In spirit he was always with us and for us; the fighting for the Union was not 



418 APPENDIX. 

always clone at the front ; there were enemies in the rear, and the naoral conflict 
was not less than the physical." 

TESTIMONIALS. 



Resolutions by the Grinnell Board of Trade, by the directors of the Savings 
Bank and the Firat National Bank, and by the Faculty of Iowa College, testified 
to Mr. Grinnell's worth and pre-eminent services; also by the executive commit- 
tee of the State Temperance Alliance, of which he was a prominent member and 
officer. 

In a published interview, Hon. Charles Aldrich, of Webster City^ la., legislator, 
and formerly Chicago editor, said, "I believe that he did moi-e with voice and pen 
to make the resources and advantages of Iowa known in the East than any twenty 
other men." Postmaster Brandt, of Des Moines, said, " He was a grand man. 
Foremost in every good work, he has been a mighty force in the moral, intellectual 
and material history of Iowa, and to his influence we owe much of our proud 
position." 

Rev. James L. Hill, D. D., of Medford, Mass., editor of The Golden Age, and 
former student of Iowa College, wrote : 

" Iowa's present greatness did not happen. Let us cheerfully accord honor to 
whom honor is due. ... I remember most vividly of all the patriotic meet- 
ings in which Mr. Grinnell was the chief speaker during the war. Since then I 
have felt the cradle of liberty rock. I have heard the best American orators in 
Faneuil Hall, and Gladstone and John Bright in impassioned addresses in parlia^ 
ment, but it was no such event to me as when the eager, expectant citizens at 
Grinnell came together in the church to give evidence at the slightest touch of the 
magic orator of the depth of their pent-up emotions. For the sake of brevity let 
me only catalogue three out of many things I would like to number for which the 
citizens of Grinnell owe their founder never-ending gratitude. 

" 1. He honored the church and its Sabbath in the eyes of the whole commu- 
nity. It will be impossible for me to forget how he held up to public scorn any 
man in the colony who had not respect enough for the Lord's Day ' to get up and 
put on a clean shirt and go to meeting '. He did stand up manfully for the decen- 
cies of life. He did create a sentiment in favor of respectability. By reason of his 
words and influence the hard-worked somnolent farmers would in harvest time 
direct their teams, followed by playful colts, toward the village church. If no one 
else would preach he would preach. Our preachers dealt mostly in ' canned goods ' 
in those busy days ; we thought we were honored to have a sermon preached to us 
that by its local allusions had evidently been inspired by the occasion. 

" 2. It was worth a lifetime to have given such testimony to temperance. 
Those of us who, since graduating at the college, have resided in places that have 
no scruples, even about license, see with great distinctness how far in advance of 
his time was the man who so many years ago laid the foundation of a prohibition 
town in the remote, unbroken West. His influence made it impossible to trafiic in 
intoxicants upon those acres. His spirit has touched thousands who from that 
municipality have been called to a life work in other communities. 

" 3. He is remembered by us for the encouragement he gave to labor. Some of 
us who were working our way through Iowa College, without ever receiving a dol- 
lar from home, cannot forget the inspiration of his words. When we read Robert 
Burns' poem 'Is There For Honest Poverty?' we would get an incitement that 
only words from J. B. Grinnell would surpass. On the Fourth of July, at the cele- 
bration on the Common, he would di-ag us up ou the stage and make us frightened 



APPENDIX. 419 

youngsters lionor the American eagle. "We for a few bewildered moments would 
forget how ill-dressed and tanned we were, and go home resolving that we would 
by dint of study and practice make ourselves worthy of the recognition he had 
given us. Having great facility of speech himself, acquired by long years on the 
platform and stump, he was merciless on those who would not try. 

" If all who love him and honor him had been allowed to follow his bier the 
line would have reached the cemetery long before souie who composed it had left 
their town. He was an unselfish man. He was a public-spirited man. Currents 
that were set in motion by him have changed the course of many a life. His 
imagination was quick, his sympathies sensitive and strong, his wit ready and his 
sense of pleasure always alert. It was like an instinct with him to be in good 
cheer. The sight of a multitude would kindle his whole being. He had a great 
capacity for genuine good fellowship. He was an age maker." 

At the 35th Annual Meeting of the Congregational General Association of 
Iowa, ISi^X) (making it a rule to attend as Mr. Grinnell did, notwithstanding his 
many occupations, and present on this occasion though an invalid), he summed up 
his life work and aspirations: " The soil was consecrated to temperance, education 
and religion, sending forth lights which we pray may never be dimmed ; and may 
these successes be an augury and prophecy of the conquest of our beloved Iowa 
for Christ." 



§ Sign of sections. 



INDEX. 



Adams, Rev. A. A., 73. 

Adams, Charles F., 60 

Adams, Jolin Q., 281. 

Agricultural affairs, 307 ; Association, 

American, 318. 
Albia and Knoxville, E.y., 299. 
Alden, Ebenezer, M. D., 342. 
Aldrich, Charles, § 251. 
Alger, Mrs. Gen., 15. 
Allison, William B., 133, 365. 
Ames, Oakes, 137, 193, § 338. 
Ames, Frederick A., 367. 
Amistad mutineers, 27. 
Apples, crab, 104 ; seeds, 104. 
Ai-boriculture, 320. 
Arthur, President, 49, 237. 
Ashley, James M., 152. 
Assassination in Powshiek Co., 145- 
Auburn Theol. Sem., 45rti. 

Bacon, Leonard, and son, 91-2. 

Bailey, Gamaliel, 56, 61, 75, 176. 

Bailey, "Wesley, 35. 

Baker, Gen. N. B. § 254. 

Bashore, John L., 144. 

Bates, Barnabas, 58. 

Beer and Wine, 123. 

Beecher, Henry W., 178, § 227, 353. 

Belknap, Gen. W. W., § 2.58. 

Benedict, Aaron and Charles, § 334. 

Benton, Thomas H., § 58, 195. 

Bigelow, John, 161. 

Billings, Frederick, .364. 

Bissell, Frederick E., 121. 

Bixby, Amos, 102. 

Black, Attorney-Gen., 171, 177. 

Black Crook, 79. 

Blagden, Rev. Dr., 73. 

Blaine, James G., 186. 231. 



Blair, Frank P., 136. 

Blair, John I., 136, 3.31, 364-5. 

Blunt, Gen. J. G., 384. 

Boston Radicals, 71. 

Boutwell, George S., § 1.39. 

Bowen, Henry C, 52, 180. 

Boynton, Gen. S. V., 160. 

Brewer, Prof. Fisk P., 330. 

Brainerd, C. H., 201. 

Brooks, James, 141. 

Brooks, J. W., 342. 

Brooks, Preston S., 81. 

Brown, Gratz, § 194. 

Brown, Dr. Jesse, 216. 

Brown, John, 207, § 210. 

Buck, Prof. S. J., 147, 356. 

Burlingame, Anson P., § 80. 

Burritt, Elihu, § 239. 

Butler, Benjamin F., of New York, 

85. 
Butler, Senator, of S. C, 62. 
Byers, Col. S. H. M., § 251. 

Cabin, first, 98. 
Cameron, Senator, 1.50. 
Carpenter, Gov. C. C.,§ 261. 
Carpet Baggers, 157. 
Carter, Preserve W., .341. 
Carter, Pres. Franklin, 341. 
Cass, Lewis, 64. 
Cemetery, Hazelwood, 106. 
Central Ry. of Iowa, .300. 
Chamberlain, Rev. J. M., 234, 333, 

§ 343. 
Champions of Freedom, 75, 233. 
Chandler, Zachary, 140. 
Chase, Salmon P., 60, 06, 173, § 175. 
Cheshire, John W., 402. 
Cherokee Neutral Lands, 378-379. 



422 



INDEX. 



Children, a Word to, 406. 

Chittenden, S. B., 367. 

Church, first in Grinnell, 109; in 
Union village, 47-8 ; in Washing- 
ton, 52. 

Cider-drinking, 10. 

Cinque, Martin, 27-8. 

Civil Service Reform, 157-8. 

Clark, Ezekiel, 252, 35G. 

Clark, William P., 216. 

Clarkson, C. F., § 240, 400. 

Clarkson, J. S., 223. 

Classical schooling, 23. 

Clay, Henry, § 201. 

Cochran, Samuel D., 114. 

Codding, Ichabod, 39-40. 

Coffin, John L., 253. 

Colfax, Schuyler, 139, § 192. 

Colony proposed, 88. 

Congress of 1863-5, 148; of 1865-7 
148 ; nomination to, 125. 

Conkling, Roscoe, 139, 197. 

Conscience Whigs, 69. 

Constitutional Amendments, 150, 153, 
157. 

Cook, Joseph, § 243. 

Cooper, Col. S. F., 334. 

Corliss, George H., 49, § 236, 331. 

Corse, Gen. J. M., 254. 

Cox, Samuel S., 142, 152. 

Craver, J. A., 145. 

Craver, Rev. S. F., 397. 

Credit Mohilier, 1.39, 193. 

Crocker, Gen. J. M., § 257. 

Crow, Prof. J. M., 330. 

Curtis, Gen. Samuel R., § 255. 

Gushing, Caleb, 78. 

Cushman, Rev. Job, § 343. 

Dairymen's Fair, National, 310. 
Dark Days at Home, 144. 
Davis, David, § 196, 224. 
Davis, Garrett, 141. 
Davis, Jefferson, 62, § 199, 225. 
Davis, Henry W., 136. 
Dean, Amos, 121. 
Dean, Henry Clay, § 269-273, 
Decollete dress, 13. 
Delahoyde, John, 390. 
Dennison, John N., 364. 
Depew, Chauncey M., 224, 367. 
Des Moines in 1858, 122; River Im- 
provement, 250. 



Devens, Charles, 76. 

Dexter, Rev. H. M., 73. 

Dey, P. A., 92. 

Diaz, President, 399. 

Dillon, Judge J. F., § 265, 301-2, 304. 

Doctor, studying to be, 20. 

Dodge, Gen. G. M., 92, § 255, 363. 

Dodge, N. P., 256. 

Dodge, Thomas H., 357. 

Dodge, William E., 80, 85, 141, § 3.37, 

360; Mrs. W. E., 348, 360. 
Donation party, 8. 
Door-keeper anecdote, 203. 
Douglas, Stephen A., 64, 174, 202. 
Douglass, Frederick, 71. 
Dowes, David, 362. 
Drinking Usages, 123. 
Dyke, Charles F., § 343. 

Edwards, Jonathan, 206. 
EUwood Fund, Founder of, 348. 
Erwin, Cornelius B., § 340. 

Fair, Dairymen's National, 310; Dis- 
trict, 312; Fine-Stock Breeders', 
314 ; State, 1890, 319. 

Farnam, Henry, 91. 

Farnsworth, Deacon, 364. 

Farnsworth, Gen. J. F., 152. 

Farwell, John V., 357-8. 

Faville, Gran, 120. 

Federal Judges, § 264. 

Fell, Jesse W., 320. 

Fences, 321. 

Fessenden, William P., 140. 

Fine-Stock Breeders' Assoc, 314. 

Fleener brothers, 145. 

Folsom, Gilman, 94. 

Foote, Henry S., 59, 62, § 199. 

Foote, Solomon, 141. 

Foster, Stephen S., 76. 

Foster, Suel, 317. 

Fourth of July, 1854, 105. 

Freedmen's Bureau, 155, 164. 

Freeman murder trial, 179. 

Free School law, 120. 

Fremont, Gen. J. C, and wife, 174. 

Friend of Man, 35. 

Fugitive Slave law, 180. 

Funeral of J. B. Grinnell, 413. 

Galveston, 394. 

Gardner, Capt. C. V., 178. 



INDEX. 



423 



Garfield, President J. A., § 138. 

GaiTison, William Lloyd, 71. 

Gates, Pres. G. A., 380. 

Gear, Gov. J. W. § 258. 

Giddings, Josliua R., 69. 

Gillet, J. D., 268. 

Gleason, Pat., 145. 

Golden Circle, Knights of, 140, 144, 
147, 159, 178. 

Goodnow, Edward A., 331, § 333. 

Gough, John B., §244. 

Gould, Jay, 366. 

Governors of Iowa, 258. 

Governors' war-meeting, 150. 

" Go "West, young man," 86-7. 

Grandchildren, addressed, 408. 

Grant, President U. S., 1G9, § 181, 
183. 

Graves, J. K., § 267. 

Greeley, Horace, 86, 87, 158, 180, § 
220. 

Green, Beriah, 33-35. 

Greenback currency, 155. 

Greenwood, Grace, 61. 

Grimes, Gov. J. W., 195, 219, § 258, 
342, 382. 

Grinnell family, 1-7; Mrs. J. B., 406; 
children, 413. 

Grinnell city, foimding of, 84; tem- 
perance proviso, 97 ; quarter cen- 
tennial, 400; church in, 115. 
Grinnell University, 325, 328. 
Grinnell, Moses H., 3, 180-182. 
Guardianship in boyhood, 16-17. 

Haddock, Rev. G. C, 291. 

Haish, Jacob, 334. 

Hale, John P., 60, 66, 140. 

Hamilton, H. M., 96. 

Hamlin, H., 93. 96. 

Hams, purcliase of, 105. 

Hard times of 1857, 127. 

Hardy, Alpheus, § 237. 

Hardy, Prof. Arthur S., § 239. 

Harlan, James, 143, 151, 378-382, § 

385. 
Harris, Benj. B., 141, 150. 
Harrison campaign, 1840, 21. 
Harrison, Mayor, 358. 
Hayes, Pres. R. B., § 1-38. 
Historic church, 115. 
Hogan, George B., 178. 
Holbrook, Rev. J. C., 336. 



Holmes, William, 49. 
Holt, Joseph, 140, 178. 
Holton, Edward D., 39. 
Holyolce, Dr., 93, 96. 
Hopkins, Rev. Josiah, 7, 8, 44-5. 
Horticultural Society, State, 317. 
Hougliton, James, 326. 
Howard, Gen. O. O., 56, 151, 155. 
Howe, Julia Ward, 73. 
Howell, J. B., § 269. 
Hoyt, Jonathan, 15. 
Hoxie, H. M., 217. 
Hubbard, A. W., 133. 
Hubbard, Judge N. W., § 264. 
Hunnewell, H. H., 364. 
Huntington, C. P., 363. 

Indians, 274 ; national control of, 282. 

Ingersoll, Eben C, 133. 

Ingersoll, R. G., 133, § 244, 246. 

Iowa and lowaus, 248. 

Iowa Band, 327. 

Iowa College, 326 ; first teachers, 327 ; 

later teachers, 330; benefactors, 

331-348. 
Irish, John P., 225. 
Irishmen, absent, 106. 

Jesup, Morris K., .321. 

Johnson, Pres. A., 146, 176, 190. 

Johnson, Reverdy, 141, 151. 

Jones, George W., 202. 

Joy, James F., 379-381, § 386. 

Jug-story, 45. 

Julien, George W., 60. 

Kansas Bridge poem, 387. 
Kasson, John A., 1-33. 
Kasson, Rev. J. H., 108. 
Kelley, Abby, 76. 
Kelley, William D., 81. 
Kellogg, R. M., 106, 110. 
Kerr, Orpheus C, 171. 

Lane, Henry S., 81. 

Larabee, Gov. W. J., § 262. 

Lawyer, liow I became a, 128. 

Lawyers, species of, 130. 

Lawsuit, first, 102. 

Leavitt, Dr. Josliua, 58. 

Lewis, Rev. John, 40. 

Library, Home, 405. 

Lincoln, Pres. A., 148, 153, 171, 173-4. 



424 



INDEX. 



Logan, John A., § 197. 
Long, Alexander, 141, 150. 
Long Home, the, 99. 
Loomis, Rev. Samuel, 111. 
Loring, Ellis G., 76. 
Love, Judge J. M., 192, § 266. 
Lovejoy, Owen, 133, § 134. 
Lowe, Gov. R, P., 258. 

McClellan, Gen. G. B., 140, 159. 

McClernand, Gen. J. A., 174. 

McCrary, G. W., § 267. 

McDill, James W., § 269. 

McDougal, Senator, 141, 151. 

Magoun, Pres. G. F., 98, 329, 335, 416. 

Manu, Horace, 121-2. 

Manning, Edwin, § 345. 

Marion College, 391. 

Martyn, Henry M., 125. 

Mason, J. M., 63, 218. 

Matthews, James, 144. 

May, Samuel J., 76. 

Mayor hootblack, 383. 

Mears, Rev. D. O., 331, 351, 356; 

Mary Grinnell, Cottage, 333. 
Memorial of Faith, 410-411. 
Merrill, J. H., 234, 345. 
Merrill, Gov. S., § 260, 345. 
Methodist Pioneer, 112. 
Mexico, 374-399. 
Michel, Reuben, 119. 
Militia training, 12-13. 
Miller, Justice S. R., § 264. 
Miner, Matilda, 57. 
Missouri colony project, 90. 
Mitchel, Thomas, 217. 
Money-making, 406-8. 
Moninger, D. M., § 268. 
Morgan, Gov. E. D., 178. 
Mother, death of, 50. 

National Era, 56. 

Negroes, enlistment of, 143, 155; in 

church, 48. 
New Haven, Vt., 4 et seq ; 369, et seq. 
New York, first visit to, 23. 
Nickerson, Thomas, 364. 
Norton, Henry B., 364. 
Nourse, Judge C. C, § 264. 
Nye, Edgar W., § 242. 

O'Connor, Charles, 25. 
Oneida Institute, 29-31, 38. 



Osgood, Rev. Samuel, 210, 214. 

Pacific Railway route, 59. 

Parker, Helen Fitch, 46. 

Parker, Prof. Henry W., 330. 

Parker, Prof. Leonard F., 327, 330, § 
340, 414. 

Parker, Rev. Theodore, § 82. 

Patterson, Jane, 107. 

Phelps, L. C. and L. A., 355-6. 

Phillips, Wendell, § 204. 

Phrenology, 14. 

Pierce, Pres. Franklin, 144, 232. 

Pierce, Lavinia, 348. 

Pierce, Moses H., 364. 

Pike, J. L., 161. 

Pills vs. blackberries, 49. 

Pomeroy, Samuel C, 56. 

Poor, Ben Perley, 160. 

Pope, W. J., 359. 

Post Office special agent, 124. 

Potter, Representative, of Wis., 65. 

Pleuropneumonia, cattle, 316. 

Plymouth church, 361. 

Prairie fire, 43. 

Presbyterian, Pennsylvanian, 112. 

Press reporters, 159. 

Price, Hiram, 133. 

Prohibition, amendment, 286; nom- 
ination declined, 288; in Iowa, 
123 ; results of, 295. 

Protective tariff, 322-4. 

Pryor, Roger M., 65. 

Quarter Centennial of Grinnell, 400- 

401. 
Quincy, Edmund, 73-4. 

Radicals of 1851, 71. 

Railroads, 297 ; personal relations to, 

298 ; Central Iowa, § 300. 
Rand, Mr. and Mrs. E. D., 347. 
Rattlesnake sermon, 101. 
Reconstruction, 154-5, 
Red tape, 149. 
Reed, Rev. J. A., 326-7. 
Reid, Whitelaw, 162, 226. 
Reporters, Press, 159. 
Richards, Seth, § 344. 
Richardson, D. N., 252. 
Rice, Gen. Eliott W., 173. 
Rice, Gen. Samuel A., 125, 128. 
Ride, without spui-s, 11. 



INDEX. 



425 



Ripley, Erastus, 28. 
Robinson, "Richelieu", 161. 
Rock Island Ry., 298. 
Rogers, Ethan, 36. 
Rouse, Rev. L. C, 111. 
Rousseau, Gen. L, H., 163, 166. 
Royce, Supt. R. I. R. R., 355. 
Russell, Thomas, 73. 
Rynders, Capt., 72. 



Sacs and Foxes, § 274. 

Sage, Russell, 363. 

Saloon, proviso on lots sold, 286; in 
candidate platform, 286. 

Salter, Rev. William, 234. 

Saulsbury, Willard, 143, 151. 

Saxe, John G., § 236. 

Scarritt, Rev. William R., 334. 

Schenck, Gen. Robert C, 69. 

School-house, demolition of, 18. 

Scott, Anor, 100. 

Scott, Harriet B., 348. 

Scott, Gen. Winfield, § 199. 

Sears, Edward R., 359. 

Seat episode, 131, 148. 

Sermon, on serpents and doves, 46; 
first in Washington, 53 ; on rattle- 
snakes, 101 ; on sermons, 402-405. 

Sharadeck (Shadrach?), 76. 

Sheep, washing, 10; shearing festi- 
val, 307; poem on, 308. 

Sherman, Gov. B. R., § 262. 

Sherman, L. N., 347. 

Sherman, Gen. W. T., 229. 

Shorter Catechism, 375-7. 

Sibley, Hiram, 364. 

Silver wedding, 401-2. 

Simms, fugitive slave, 76. 

Sioux city, 133. 

Slater, J. F., 364. 

Slidell, John, 63. 

Smith, Gerrit, 31-32. 

Soldier vote, 126. 

Speakers from abroad, 115. 

Spring, Rev. Gardiner, 24. 

Stanton, Edwin McM., § 177. 

Stammerer's prayer, 113. 

State Register, Iowa, 240. 

State senator, nomination, 118-119. 

State University, 349. 

Steele, Alonzo, § 'Aid. 

Stevens, Mrs. R. D., 1548. 



Stevens, Thaddeus, 69, 132, 148, § 186, 

203, 276. 
Stewart, Alvin, 32-33. 
Stone, Mrs. D. P., 339. 
Stone, Gov. W. M., § 260. 
Stone, Rev. William L., 73. 
Story, W. F., § 242. 
Sturtevant, Rev. J. M., 114. 
Sumner, Charles P., 67, 68, 78. 

Tabor, Iowa, 85, 215, 218. 

Tappau, Arthur and Lewis, 27. 

Tappan, Rev. Dr., 111. 

Tariff Policy, 322-4. 

Taylor, Pres. Zachary, 51. 

Teacher, juvenile, 17. 

Temperance, 284 ; ploughing, 285 ; and 
Republican party, 287 ; address in 
1886, 288; and Iowa churches, 
291 ; and heredity, 292. 

Tenney, Rev. H. M., 114, 414. 

Texas Overland Trip, 289. 

Thayer, Nathaniel, 342. 

Theological study, 44-46. 

Thirty-eighth Congress, 131. 

Thirty-ninth Congress, 148. 

Tornado of 1882, 351. 

Townsend, George A., 160. 

Tracy, John F. 216. 

Trumbull, Lyman, 140, 196. 

Trust Funds, 350. 

Tm-ner, Rev. Asa, 326, 329. 

Tuttle, Gen. J. M., 254. 

Union Village, N. Y., 47. 

Vallandigham, Clement L., 147. 
Vanderbilt, Cornelius, senior, 25. 
Vanderbilt, William H., 366-7. 
Vattel on erratic nations, 282. 
Vermont and Vermonters, 369-377. 
Voorhees, Daniel W., 141. 

Wade, Benjamin F., 68, 140. 
Walker, J. M., 196. 
Walker, Dr. Mary, 243. 
Wallace, Gen. Lew, 246. 
War days at home, 144. 
War Congress, 131. 
Washburn, Elihu B., 182. 
Washburn, William B., 182. 
Washburn and Moen, 363. 
Washington, in 1850, 51; first Con- 
gregational Church in, 52. 



426 



INDEX. 



"Weaver, Gen. James B., 253. 
Webb, William H., 85. 
Webster, Daniel, 69, 76, 77, 203. 
Weed, Thm-low, 180. 
West, first visit to, 38. 
Wheeler, Vice-Pres. W. A., 139. 
Whiskey, tax, 150, 155; "For Sail, 

285 ; revenue from, 293. 
Whitcomb, David, 342, 364. 
White, Horace, 161. 
White, Stephen V., 361. 
Whitney, Asa, 58. 
Whitin, John C, 341. 
Whittier, John G., 75. 
Wilcox, Rev. William H., 340. 
Wilkinson, Samuel, 161. 



Williston, J. P., § 337. 
Willistou, Samuel, § 336. 
Wilmot, David, 59. 
Wilson, James F., § 78, 132, 167, 182. 
Winslow, Judge H. S., 144. 
Wisconsin in 1844, 38, 41-3. 
Wolf-hunt, 44. 

Wood, Fernando, 142, 144, 151-2. 
Woodruff, Capt. J. M., 144. • 
Woodworth, Rev. W. W., 114. 
Wool-growers' Assoc, 307. 
Workman, Marshal, 215. 
Wright, Judge G. G., § 263. 

Yale College, 28. 

Yates, Gov. Richard, 140. 



